Zdzisław Beksiński

Life

Beksiński was born in Sanok, southern Poland, and studied architecture at Kraków Polytechnic from 1947 to 1952. After returning to Sanok in 1955, he worked supervising construction sites and designing buses, but found the work unenjoyable. During this time he pursued montage photography, sculpting, and painting, often using construction materials for his sculptures. His early photography, featuring peculiar wrinkles, desolate landscapes, and still-life faces on rough surfaces, foreshadowed his later paintings.

Lacking formal artistic training, he primarily used oil paint on hardboard panels he prepared himself, though he also experimented with acrylics, and listened to classical music while painting. His first major success came with a 1964 Warsaw exhibition organized by Janusz Bogucki. By the late 1960s he entered his "fantastic period," lasting into the mid-1980s, producing disturbing images of gloomy, nightmarish environments with skeletons, deformed figures, and deserts.

He stated he wished to paint as if photographing dreams. Despite the grim subjects, he considered some works optimistic or humorous, refused to title them, and claimed not to know their meaning. Before moving to Warsaw in 1977, he destroyed a selection of his works in his backyard without documentation.

Later life and death

Beksiński's wife Zofia died in 1998, and his son Tomasz died by suicide by drug overdose on Christmas Eve 1999, whose body Beksiński discovered. On 21 February 2005, Beksiński was murdered in his Warsaw flat by Robert Kupiec, the teenage son of his longtime caretaker, and Kupiec's cousin Łukasz. Both were arrested; Robert received a 25-year sentence and Łukasz 5 years.

Personality

Despite the grim nature of his art, Beksiński was known as a pleasant, modest, and shy person with a keen sense of humor who avoided public events like exhibition openings. He credited music as his main inspiration and claimed little influence from literature, cinema, or other artists, rarely visiting museums. He avoided analyzing his work's content, saying he just painted what came to mind. He had obsessive–compulsive disorder, which he called "neurotic diarrhea" and which made him reluctant to travel.

Legacy

Sanok, Poland, houses a museum dedicated to Beksiński. A museum with 50 paintings and 120 drawings from the Piotr Dmochowski collection opened in 2006 in the City Art Gallery of Częstochowa, remaining until 2021. In 2012, the New Gallery of Zdzisław Beksiński opened in a rebuilt wing of Sanok castle. A 'Beksiński cross' in the artist's characteristic T-shape was installed at Burning Man.

The 2016 drama film The Last Family, directed by Jan P. Matuszyński, portrays Beksiński and his family, with Andrzej Seweryn playing Beksiński. The 2021 book Beksiński. Wizje życia i śmierci by Dorota Szomko–Osękowska focuses on existential themes in his works. In 2023, the online Zdzisław Beksiński Art Promotion Archive was created.

Did You Know?

• Beksiński wrote 40 short stories in fewer than two years between 1963 and 1965, but sealed them away unhappy with the results; they were published posthumously in 2015.
• Beksiński refused to give titles to any of his drawings or paintings, saying even he did not know their meaning.