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WŁADYSŁAW MIRECKI
Exhibitions 2006-2008


Władysław Mirecki's works are always available at Chappel Galleries

Where enquiries of prices are made on the gallery, the work is subject to availability and the price to change.


The Culvert, watercolour 2008 150 x 90cm

The above painting was a prize winner
in the Lynn Painter-Stainers, London 2008

 

 

 

WŁADYSŁAW MIRECKI

Birthdays may essentially be different from no other days, but at 50 any artist, writer or composer is entitled to pause and reflect on what has been achieved and what may yet be. Although at points during his life Władysław Mirecki may have felt unsure about his accomplishment and apprehensive about his future as a painter, as he surveys the walls of the Chappel Galleries on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday exhibition he need feel no such doubts. Mirecki is established as a highly technically accomplished watercolourist with a strong sense of place.

For Waj, as he is widely known, the way ahead has not always been obvious and chance has frequently dictated the route. Early auguries were good. Even as a very small child he demonstrated high intelligence and an awareness of the world around him that would be essential assets for an artist, skills put into good effect at secondary school. Unlike many potential artists, however, Mirecki in his teens remained undecided as to whether he should become a painter or, like his brothers, pursue a scientific career. It was a quandary that would bedevil his time at Kingston Polytechnic, Royal College of Art/Imperial College and various jobs. Not surprisingly, there were periods of depression well into his twenties.

A return to his roots at Chelmsford, part-time work at the railway museum at Chappel and Wakes Colne, the discovery of the emerging Chappel Galleries, marriage to Edna Battye their founder and her and Waj’s joint development of the space as an important centre for established and emerging artists – this all contributed to set Mirecki on course to become a serious painter. In the Colne Valley and specifically that miracle of Victorian engineering the Chappel viaduct which dominates the view from the gallery, Mirecki found his equivalent to John Constable’s Stour, Samuel Palmer’s Shoreham and Stanley Spencer’s Cookham. Appropriately, when a recent BBC television programme was made about singular features of East Anglia, Mirecki was asked to talk about the viaduct.

It features in his current exhibition, but recent years have shown that Mirecki’s horizons are not limited to it and that his work already has international appeal. A pleasing aspect of his last solo exhibition at the Chappel Galleries, in 2003, was a new group of works based on views of the Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk coastlines. In 1999, he was invited to have a solo show at Jiangsu Provincial Art Gallery, in Nanjing, China, where it and the Jiangsu Province Department of Culture acquired his work and it received wide popular acclaim. What he saw there, and the constant interaction with artists showing at the Chappel Galleries have undoubtedly nourished his own work.

Fundamentally, however, Mirecki remains a selftaught, self-directed painter. Skills are often hard-won for such autodidacts. Among the benefits are that they develop as individuals, not mere clones of a one teacher or a straightjacket college tradition. Mirecki at 50 is very much his own man, and how he develops will be fascinating to observe.

W MIRECKI

Born Chelmsford, Essex 1956, of Polish parentage. He is self-taught, having painted all his life including his periods gaining his science degree, as an industrial designer and co-proprietor of Chappel Galleries.

EXHIBITED:  
 
 
1988
New English Art Club, Mall Galleries, London
1989
Epping Forest District Museum “Artists in Essex”
1989
Southend on Sea 31st Open Exhibition (purchase by Essex County Council
1990
Chappel Galleries Solo Exhibition

1991

Foyles Art Gallery, London

1992

Department of Transport Art Competition, Mall Galleries, London

1992
Deuxième Salon Biennale de L’Aquarelle, Hirson, France (touring show Chelmsford 1993)
1992
Essex County Council, Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Commission, Essex
1996
Solo Exhibition Chappel Galleries, 10th Anniversary Exhibition
1997
Singer and Friedlander, Sunday Times Exhibition, London
1997
Beecroft Art Gallery, Essex, Open Exhibition
1999 Solo Exhibition, Jiangsu Provincial Art Gallery Nanjing, People’s Republic of China. Work acquired by Jiangsu Provincial Art Gallery and Jiangsu Province Department of Culture. Solo exhibition, Chappel Galleries
2000 Work acquired by Chelmsford Museums, Essex and Ipswich Borough Museums, Suffolk
2002
Blyth Spirit “Walberswick Artists 1880–2000”, Chappel Galleries
2003
Chappel Galleries, solo exhibition WH Pattersons, London, Christmas mixed
2004
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Dove Barn, Boxford, Suffolk WH Pattersons, London, Christmas mixed
2006
Chappel Galleries, Solo Exhibition
2007
Royal Watercolour Society Open Competition, Bankside Gallery, London
Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, Mall Galleries, London
Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition Mall Galleries, London: Winner of the Edward Wesson Award.
Beecroft Art Gallery, Westcliffe on Sea, Essex 49th Essex Open Exhibition: Awarded Prize and Shirley Robson Bowl for the best watercolour
Chappel Galleries, Essex ‘Southwold, the East Coast’
Sunday Times/Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander, London: 3rd Prize Winner, The Mall Galleries, London
Lynn Painter-Stainers, London
Chichester Open Art Exhibition, Chichester
Royal West of England Academy 155th Autumn Exhibition, Bristol
New English Art Club, The Mall Galleries, London
2008
RWS/Sunday Times watercolour competition, Bankside Gallery, London
Lynn Painters-Stainers, London (short listed for Prize)
   
COLLECTIONS
 
1989
Essex County Council
1999
Jiangsu Province Art Museum, People’s Republic of China
Jiangsu Province Department of Culture, People’s republic of China
2000
Chelmsford Museums, Essex
Ipswich Borough Council Museums & Galleries, Suffolk
   
PUBLICATIONS
 
2000
February Edition, Jiangsu Art Monthly
April Edition, Artists & Illustrators Magazine
2003
A Walk in the Country – 32pp Monograph
2006
Monograph to accompany Solo Exhibition Featured in “Southwold: An Earthly Paradise” by Geoffrey Munn, published by Antique Collectors Club
Władysław Mirecki at Fifty – 32pp Monograph
BBC Television Programme: ‘Seven Man-made Wonders of the East’ interview about Chappel Viaduct, showing Mirecki’s paintings depicting the Viaduct.

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
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