2024-04-23
In May this year, the painting by Polish painter Ewa Juszkiewicz "Portrait of a Lady (After Louis Leopold Boilly)" was sold at Christie's charity auction in New York for 1.56 million dollars. In addition to Juszkiewicz's composition, the auction featured works by Helmut Newton, Bankse and Jeff Koons.
Ewa Juszkiewicz was born in Gdańsk, where she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts from 2004 to 2009. In 2009, she defended her doctorate at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. For several years, she has been conquering the artistic world by combining the past and the present. In her paintings, she refers to the classic female portrait. She reaches for well-known painters and painters of old art such as Rogier van der Weyden or Elizabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun and then covers the faces of the portrayed women. In place of the faces, she paints hair, cloth, shells and floral compositions. Thus, as the author herself writes, she wants to free herself from the norms imposed by fashion and culture. She considers old fashion to be a kind of oppression, where there was little room for individuality.
In 2014, the painter was one of the world's most promising young painters, featured in the book "100 Painters of Tomorrow" by the art world-renowned Kurt Beers. Her works have been exhibited by the most renowned art galleries in the world, including Almine Rech Gallery in Paris, Gagosian in New York, Christie's Ryder Street Gallery in London and MOCAK in Cracow.
Moreover, the artist's works increasingly often appear on the offer of the most prestigious auction houses in the world. On 17 November 2021, her canvas Girl in Blue (2013), valued at 80-120 thousand dollars, was sold for 730 800 dollars. The composition ,,Portrait of a Lady (After Louis Leopold Boilly)" sold at the May auction was created in 2019. The proceeds from the sale of the work will contribute to the POLIN Museum in Warsaw account. It seems that this is not the last time we hear about the talented Gdańsk artist.
Photo source: Christie's auction house