Tribute to Stani Nitkowski

From 12 March to 14 May 2011

Tribute to Stani Nitkowski
 
The first gallery space will exhibit the emblematic works that have marked the history of the gallery, while the second gallery space will be dedicated to the work of Stani Nitkowski. Drawings and paintings that span a period of over twenty years reveal the tumultuous path of this inimitable artist. It is a body of work that began full of color, to evolve later into the somber canvases that evoke Goya’s Quinta del Sordo period.

Stani Nitkowski was born in 1949 near Angers. His first paintings arose from the illness that kept him in a wheelchair at the age of 23: muscular dystrophy. Drawing, writing, and painting became for him a means of surviving and overcoming the illness that immobilized him. Exahusted, and more and more isolated, he ended his life in 2001.In an interview in 1999 with Jean-Marie Drot and Dominique Polad-Hardouin, Stani Nitkowski said: “I love life but it is often bloody. I never wanted to shock. I want to be as direct as possible in my work. I see what is around me and I paint it searingly in order to leave a mark.”

His correspondence with Cérès Franco, including illustrations, will be published at the time of the exhibition.

A website has been dedicated to the life and works of Stani Nitkowski  : http://nitkowski.polad-hardouin.com