ArtistPolish-Swedish
Lech Rzewuski
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Born in Zamość, Poland in 1941, Lech Rzewuski grew up in a city with deep historical and artistic roots in eastern Poland. He completed his secondary studies at PLSP in Zamość before going on to study painting and printmaking at PWSSP in Wrocław - today known as the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design - where he developed the formal vocabulary that would carry him through five decades of creative work.
In 1967 Rzewuski made his exhibition debut in Stockholm, a city that would become his adopted home. The move to Sweden marked the beginning of a sustained dialogue between Eastern European artistic traditions and the cooler, more restrained aesthetic of Scandinavia. His oils and mixed-media paintings drew on classical themes - figures from antiquity, allegory, and the natural world - rendered in a palette that struck critics and collectors as unusually warm and direct, earning him the informal title 'the Polish Gauguin.'
From 1979 to 1986 Rzewuski lived and worked in Mozambique, one of the defining periods of his career. In Maputo he helped co-found a school of fine arts and taught there, bringing European and Polish graphic traditions to a generation of African students while absorbing the light, colour and culture of southern Africa. The experience deepened the philosophical dimension of his landscapes and broadened his range of media, reinforcing his commitment to art as both practice and pedagogy.
After returning to Sweden he settled in Saltsjöbaden and continued to exhibit regularly across Scandinavia and Europe. His output spanned oil painting, mixed-media on canvas, coloured lithography, etching and copperplate engraving - sometimes working in tightly focused thematic series such as 'Inspiration from the Ancient World' and lyrical compositions drawn from music. He also wrote poetry and published the collection 'Omega - Opór' in 1995, alongside essays and articles addressing social and political themes in Swedish.
Rzewuski died in Saltsjöbaden in 2004. At auction in the Nordic market, his prints and paintings circulate primarily through Swedish houses: Metropol and Stockholms Auktionsverk Sickla account for most of the 11 lots tracked on Auctionist, with further appearances at Höörs Auktionshall and Södermanlands Auktionsverk. Works sold include etchings, copperplate prints and oil paintings, including pieces from the 'Inspiration from the Ancient World' series and mixed-media canvases dating from the 1970s and 1980s.