ArtistPolish-Swedish
Stanislaw Zoladz
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Stanislaw Zoladz was born in 1952 in a village in southern Poland. After completing five years of high school with an arts emphasis, he studied for six years at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, where he worked in oils and gouache alongside watercolour. By the time he graduated, watercolour had become his primary language. In 1978 he relocated to Sweden, establishing a studio in Nacka, just outside central Stockholm.
For three decades, Zoladz returned repeatedly to Simpnäs in Roslagen and the outer archipelago north of Stockholm, painting the same rocks, boats, and winter shorelines in changing light conditions. His technical approach prioritises controlled transparency: he describes the challenge of watercolour as one of minimising mistakes while coaxing colour nuance through layering and timing. The results are compositions in which water surfaces hold reflections with near-photographic fidelity, yet the handling remains unmistakably painterly.
The international watercolour community recognised his work through a series of distinctions. In 2000 he received second prize at the Winsor and Newton "Our World in the Year 2000" competition, collecting the award from Prince Charles at St James's Palace in London. He received the Excellence Prize at the Shenzhen Watercolor Biennial in China in 2013-2014, and recognition at the World Watermedia Exposition in Thailand in 2014. He is one of seven founders of the International Masters of Watercolours Association (IMWA) and served as its President in 2021.
His most distinctive institutional commission came when he was asked to create the watercolour decorations for Nobel Prize Diplomas - for Chemistry laureates in 2019, Physics in 2020, and Economics in 2021. His work is represented at Galleri Mats Bergman and Galleri Carl in Stockholm, as well as at galleries across Europe.
At auction, Zoladz's prints and watercolours appear across Swedish houses including Bukowskis Stockholm, Auktionshuset Kolonn, Göteborgs Auktionsverk, and Gomér and Andersson. The Auctionist database holds 21 lots split between paintings and prints. Top results include a colour lithograph titled "Aprilljus" at 2,900 SEK and "Höga vågor" at 2,800 SEK, with one print reaching 650 EUR. The presence of numbered lithographs alongside original watercolours offers collectors entry points at varied price levels.