Do you own a work by Wilhelm Sasnal, which you would like to sell?
Wilhelm Sasnal Prices
Artist | Artwork | Price (incl. premium) |
---|---|---|
Wilhelm Sasnal | Untitled (Tree Parasite with Balls) | €31.200 |
Wilhelm Sasnal was born on 29 December 1972 in Tarnow in Poland. He first studied architecture from 1992 to 1994 at the Technical University in Krakow, then turned to painting and graduated in that subject from the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts. In 1996, Sasnal co-founded the artist’s group Grupa Ladnie, to which he belonged until it disbanded in 2001. In 1999, he completed a painting course and subsequently tried to gain a foothold as a freelance artist, which happened surprisingly quickly: The successful presentation of his pictures at exhibitions in the Kunsthalle Basel and at the Entdeckermesse Liste Art Fair Basel brought him international recognition as early as 2002, and the final breakthrough followed in 2006 when he won the prestigious Vincent van Gogh Biennial Award for Contemporary Art. That same year, the Frankfurter Kunstverein exhibited Sasnal’s works in Germany, and in 2021, over 60 pieces were on display in the Munich Haus der Kunst.
Wilhelm Sasnal examines at length his Polish origins and the history of his country, and the events of the Second World War - which are still traumatic for many Poles today - play an important role. For more than two decades, the painter has tried to master the extremely difficult balancing act between the suffering that Poland experienced at the hands of the National Socialists, and the guilt that many of his compatriots brought upon themselves through antisemitic acts and crimes. These artistic endeavours - not without controversy - culminated in 2021 with the exhibition ‘Such a Landscape’ which comprised some 60 paintings and drawings and was held at Polin, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. The artist himself explains his strong interest in Jewish themes also with an undefined feeling of guilt as a Polish person and one who was not involved. Portraits of professed antisemites such as the French painter Edgar Degas and the Austrian ‘brown’ bishop Alois Hudal belong just as much to Sasnal’s artistic examination of this difficult theme as an alternative historiography of Poland without the Holocaust and concentration camps, but with futuristic synagogues and flourishing kibbutzim.
Alongside painting, Wilhelm Sasnal often turned to other artforms. Since 1997, he has shot several films together with his wife Anna Sasnal, which were shown in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam, and the 2014 Berlinale, amongst others. Wilhelm Sasnal takes inspiration for his oil paintings from various sources, including pictures from history books and old newspapers, comics, films, family photos and simple sketches, which he fills himself with everyday observations. Sasnal’s art is thus sometimes reminiscent of Pop Art, but with his reduced painting style, the Polish artist has found a style all of his own. It appears at first glance realistic, but the second look reveals an almost surrealistic second level – as with the picture of piled cabbages, which could be interpreted as a mound of skulls of a mass grave. Such interpretations often unfold only through the context the artist creates with his ingenious arrangements in his exhibitions.
© Kunsthaus Lempertz
Do you own a work by Wilhelm Sasnal, which you would like to sell?
Artist | Artwork | Price (incl. premium) |
---|---|---|
Wilhelm Sasnal | Untitled (Tree Parasite with Balls) | €31.200 |
About Cookies
This website uses cookies. Those have two functions: On the one hand they are providing basic functionality for this website. On the other hand they allow us to improve our content for you by saving and analyzing anonymized user data. You can redraw your consent to using these cookies at any time. Find more information regarding cookies on our Data Protection Declaration and regarding us on the Imprint.
Settings