Jacek Sroka

Painter, graphic artist and illustrator. Born in Kraków in 1957. He studied at the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (1976 - 1981). In the years 1981-1988 he was an assistant at the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts. In 2018 he taught a graphics course at the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has exhibited paintings and graphics in one hundred and twenty individual shows (including in Kraków, Warsaw, Wrocław, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, Reykjavik, Amsterdam, Maastricht, San Francisco, Vienna, Lyon, Curitiba, Beijing) and several hundred collective shows in Poland and around the world. Retrospective museum exhibitions: Musee Des Beaux Arts,Chambery, France, 1995; Musee d’Ussel, France, 2005; National Museum in Kraków, 2008; Kunstverein Offenburg, Germany, 2008; National Museum, Przemyśl, 2011; Museum of the Lubusz Land, Zielona Góra, 2011; Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, Brazil, 2013; Upper Silesian Museum, Bytom 2017. The artist’s works can be found in museum collections in Poland (including the National Museum in Kraków, the L. Wyczółkowski District Museum in Bydgoszcz, the Upper Silesian Museum, Bytom; Museum of Art, Łódź; Museum of Contemporary Art, Radom, the Jagiellonian Library, Kraków; the Graphic Collection of the Polish Academy of Arts, Kraków) and around the world (including the Metropolitan Museum, New York; Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Musee Savoisien, Chambery; Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque National de France, Paris; Utsunomiya Museum of Art, Utsunomiya; Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba; Ningbo Art Museum, Ningbo) as well as in numerous private collections. The artist is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, including: at the Mulhouse Graphic Arts Biennial (1984), the International Exhibition of Miniatures in Toronto (1986), Graphica Atlantica in Reykjavik (1987), the Vaasa Graphic Arts Biennial (1987), the Grand Prix at the Seoul Graphic Arts Biennial (1988), the I.Trybowski Award at the International Graphic Arts Triennial in Kraków (1994). Nominated for the "Polityka" Passport in 1996; winner of the Witold Wojtkiewicz Award (2001); awarded the Bronze "Gloria Artis" Medal and the Vive l'Art Medal awarded by the Kraków Branch of the ZPAP. Several documentaries have been made about the artist's work, including: "Observer's Diary", directed by Jarosław Migoń, 2017 (Grand Prix of the Review of Films about Art in Zakopane, 2018), "Sexuality of the Street of Polish Flowers", directed by Jarosław Migoń, 2013, "Jacek Sroka, the Abyss of Działoszyce" images and script by Jacek Sroka, directed by Jarosław Migoń, 2020