Exhibition of works on paper
JAN LEBENSTEIN. IN MEMORIAM: (1930-1999).
Music by Saxophonist Krzysztof Medyna
Exhibition is organized in partership by the Gallery Roi Dore and PIASA and co-sponsored by the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York.
Jan Lebenstein (1930 – 1999), is one of the great Polish contemporary artists. His talent was recognized early in his career. In 1955 shortly after his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw he was awarded a jury prize for his landscape drawings. In 1959 he won the restigious Grand Prize of Paris at the First International Biennale of Young Artists. The artist subsequently moved to Paris.
Jan Lebenstein inspiration derived from his fascination with the Bible and the mythologies of the ancient civilizations of Assyria, Babylon, Greece and Egypt. in the years 1960 to 1965 he created strange creatures in his Carnet Intimes series and “prehistoric” animals in his Creatures Abominable series. From 1966 to 1974 he produced works (Bestiaria series) in which his mythological scenes were depicted in bars, metros and other common sites of modern cities.
Lebenstein also applied his talents to other art forms. He illustrated Orwell’s Animal Farm, as well as The Book of Job and The Apocalypse. He designed the stained glass windows for the Centre de Dialogue in Paris.
Among Jan Lebenstein’s many honors and awards for his body of work are the Jurzykowski Foundation Prize (1976), the Jan Cybis prize (1987) and the Great Cross and Star of the Order of the Restoration of Poland (1998).
In the summer of 2014 Paris Gallery Roi Dore (www.roidore.com) organized an exhibition of the artist’s work on paper, “JAN LEBENSTEIN. IN MEMORIAM” (1930-1999). The artist’s works from that exhibition were brought to New York PIASA Gallery by the Gallery Roi Dore. The current exhibition is organized by The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America in partnership with the Gallery Roi Dore and with cosponsorship of the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York.
