NIKIFOR

Nikifor is a Polish national treasure. His work is so valued and renowned that the Polish government will no longer allow it to be exported. Throughout Poland, there are three museums, which are solely dedicated to his work. In addition, he has been exhibited throughout the world. Nikifor was born deaf and dumb and little is known about his childhood except that his mother was a beggar and a prostitute and that he did not know his father. He spent much of his life as a traveling beggar and most of his days ill with tuberculosis. During a stay in the hospital, a doctor gave him a box of watercolors and thus began his career as a naïve painter. Painting not only became the way he earned a living, but also his reason to live. He sold his small paintings as souvenir postcards. The large letters on his pictures are mostly meaningless, however, sometimes the word malarz (painter) can be deciphered. Nikifor often painted himself as a person he desired to be, such as a respected official, a father or a large family, or a bishop. He is considered Poland's greatest self-taught painter.   *click image for larger view

	Virgin Mary drawing on paper SOLD		Napane Paka drawing on paper $2800
	Town in Poland with Two Flags colored pencil on paper $3200		Village with a Church watercolor on paper $2800
	Virgin Mary colored pencil on paper $2800		Four Figures colored pencil on paper $3200
	Saint Joseph colored pencil on paper $2800