Well, Halloween is coming, and what could be more appropriate than the fantastic artwork of Zdzisław Beksiński to help celebrate the season? This will be a hard one for me to write about. I just want to post a few hundred images, because they are so beautiful and horrible… and because the pictures speak for themselves. But I will try not to overload with images, and give a little background.
Beksiński was born February 24, 1929 in Sanok, Poland. He was ten years old as he watched Nazi Germany and their (then) Russian allies come through and completely tear apart, occupy, and later split up his country. I have read a lot about the history of World War II, and have a very hard time wrapping my mind around Nazi brutality. I can’t imagine seeing it first-hand. Later, Beksiński went on to study architecture in Kraków, and became interested in sculpture and photography, but settled into painting. His first works were very abstract, but later the surreal and fantastic became his main inspiration.
Beksiński spent most of his adult life focusing on his artwork, and became a leading figure in contemporary Polish art. He does have a huge portfolio and, even though I have looked through a lot of his work, there always seems to be more and more to see.
On February 21, 2005, Beksiński was found dead in his Warsaw flat. He’d been stabbed 17 times by a neighbor who Beksiński had refused a loan of $100.
Happy Halloween!
