This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jerzy Nowosielski – an outstanding Polish icon painter. On this anniversary, the Sejm of the Republic of Poland declared 2023 the year of Jerzy Nowosielski.

Nowosielski was born in Kraków in a Polish-Ukrainian (Lemkos) family. At first, he studied and then taught painting at the Kraków Art Academy. His formation as a person and an artist was greatly influenced by the study of icon painting at the Studio Lavra near Lviv and familiarizing himself with the Carpathian icon from the collection of Andrey Sheptytskyi. At the beginning of his artistic career, Jerzy Nowosielski was associated with the Polish avant-garde: he belonged to the Kraków group, worked as an assistant to the outstanding artist and director Tadeusz Kantor, and created scenography for a puppet theatre in Łódź. At the same time, the artist was deeply immersed in Orthodox theology. Using the figurative language of non-figurative avant-garde painting, he created icons, later iconostases, and the architecture of Orthodox churches.

Krystyna Czerny outlined Jerzy Nowosielski’s career as a modern icon painter and analyzed his iconic works. The texts are complemented with photographs of icons and churches created by him.

Krystyna Czerny is a Polish art critic and Doctor of Philosophy, an author of television programs about art, a member of the Kraków magazine “Znak” editorial board, and an author of several books devoted to Polish art. A significant part of her publications is dedicated to the creativity and personality of Jerzy Nowosielski. The Ukrainian translation of one of them – “Bat in the Temple” – was published in 2015 by the “Books – XXI” publishing house.