About the Artists: Andrzej Szadkowski

Copper Museum in Legnica, ul. Partyzantów 3
4 May – 31 August, 2021

Opening Hours:

Wensday - Friday: 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Saturday - Sunday: 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Andrzej Szadkowski. The rhythm of creative work 1968-2021

The retrospective exhibition presents several dozen works of the Artist, which were created in the last five decades. They mark his path from the beginnings - the formation of awareness of the jewellery form - to the deliberate crossing and overwriting of its boundaries, which is shown vividly against the chronological background of the acquired knowledge and skills. The layout of the exhibition shows design methods ranging from the simplest to the most complex, and taken to the present day, it demonstrates the unobvious values favoured by jewellery art today. It no longer recognises "single-layered" objects, devoid of philosophical reflection or reflections on its place in the chain of development. The sense of its aesthetic value is brought closer by the wealth of inspiration and design methodology while the knowledge of technique and technology is a helpful and fundamental part of this specialisation.

The artist's first works were based on the exploration of materials. Their proper applications were connected with the function of form in the simplest way. They developed with time and according to Vasyl Kandinsky’s principle: from point, line, plane, solid, space, light, structure, to dedication and impact, inclusion of physical, emotional and meaningful space, until jewellery became for the Author a reflection of tastes, a carrier of suggestions and meanings directed to the recipient or current reflections on contemporary art and aesthetics. Their result was a series of 165 brooches entitled. "Art Systems" (presented for the first time in 2018 in the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź) in which the ordering of rhythms, the search for ways to express the illusion of space, the analysis of colours and the composition of elements on the plane - became a graphic play. In turn, approaching the newly promoted Polish values: amber and striped flint, not only enriched the Author's work in the field of jewellery, but also (thanks to new ways of expression and a return to nature) became a way to search for truth, knowledge about the history, properties and beauty of these raw materials.

Andrzej Szadkowski has always appreciated the suggestions of competitions and thematic exhibitions, such as: "He and She", "Everyday Jewellery", "We from Jedwabne" or the recent ones: "Cosmos" and "Treasure". The latter allowed him to approach conceptual art in his realizations (e.g. by using or justifying such criteria or ideas as smell, light, sound, time), which indicates a natural transformation towards simple contents and new abstract reflections on the idea of art and form. He describes this phase: "the highest form of sophistication for me is simplicity and purity of concept. With certain experiences and predilections I face the answer to the artistic problems of the speciality". He also says about his realisations: "The combination of the external world (form, colour, texture material, illusions, rhythm, space) and the internal world (pulsation of nature, harmony, message, dedication), often in the forms of artistic concepts with the use of new media - creates new, rich values of art, including artistic jewellery. Just as a sculptor cares about where his sculptures will stand, jewellery requires a non-accidental context in space, in relation to the figure, the circumstances, the mood".

Andrzej Szadkowski (born 04.06.1947 in Zgierz) - professor, goldsmith artist, designer, promoter and teacher. Graduate of the State Higher School of Fine Arts (now the Academy of Fine Arts) in Łódź (1972). Employed at his alma mater, since 1989 head of the Jewellery Design Studio at the Faculty of Design, in 2002 he established a Department of Jewellery. In 1995, he was awarded a professorship by President Lech Wałęsa - the first in Poland to receive the title of professor in the field of jewellery design. In 2005-12, Vice-Rector for Education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź; in 2015-20, Full Professor at the Technical University of Łódź. Juror of international jewellery competitions; member of International Associations of Artists; member of Expert Teams of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Awarded the Medal of the International Amber Association and the Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2011), Merited to Polish Culture (2102) Gloria Artis Gold Medal (2018), and nominated for the Prof. A. Gieysztor Award (2014). Author of 11 solo exhibitions and over 200 group exhibitions; participant of many national and five international symposia. His works are in 11 museums at home and abroad.

Perfume bottles – two pieces  cubes of phosphorescent plexiglass, acrylic resin, 1969

UV  necklace, silver, silver tube, PVC-UV rod, 1994

Ring, amber, PVC, 2006

Bracelet, garnets, felt, steel strings, jewellery objects made from garnets foiled on A4 sized passe-partout 2010

original in The Museum of Jewellery in Turnov