From the Salzman Collection — Nikifor

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Painting 1


Painting 2


Painting 3


Nikifor's Plea for Support

Holdings

The Salzman Collection holds three gouache paintings on paper, mounted, backed and framed under glass.

The Artist

Photo of Nikifor

Nikifor or Nykyfor (Никифор or Ницифор) [1] is the name used by Epifan or Epifaniusz Drowniak (Єпіфан Дровняк), an outsider primitivist artist who lived from about (May 21?) 1895–1968 in what is now a popular ski resort and spa town, Krynica [2] (Криница, AKA Krinica) Wieś, Podkarpackie Wjewództwo in Malopolskie (Little Poland and specifically, at one time, the province of Galicia or Galicja), Poland in the Kryniczanka Valley carved by the Poprad river in the Beskid Sadecki mountains, in the parish of Nowy Sacz (Neu Sander, Sants, Sanz, Sonch, Zanz).

Along with Teofil Ociepka, Nikifor is one of the best-known Polish primitivists.

Nikifor was the illegitimate son of Łavdokha or Jewdoka or Eudocia [3] Drowniak (Євдока Дровняк, commonly known as Odocha, Onycha, or Odoska), a possibly deaf-mute Lemko (Łemek) beggar and prostitute, and sometime charwoman at the Willa Trzy Różea, a local resort hotel. She died shortly after childbirth. The town's Lemkos (eastern Slavs by origin, claimed by both Ukrainians and Russians and properly Ruthenians, Rusyns, or Rysnaks, traditionally a mountain-dwelling people with distinct Lemkian dialects of Slavic) kept the child alive.

Photo of Nikifor with a hat

Lemkos were generally poor highlanders, shepherds and farmers often employed as swineherds in other regions, but in Krynica able to eke out a living by carrying construction materials for the villas that wealthy Poles were setting up in the late XIXth and early XXth century on northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains surrounding the fashionable spa town or by providing a taxi service between town and mountains for the summer visitors.

Epifan's severe speech impediment (supposedly a result of both a hearing impairment like his mother had and ankyloglossia —tongue-tie), together with poverty and his debased social condition all combined to isolate him from any friendships. His inability to understand what numbers mean suggests innate intellectual limitations.

Apparently it was at age 13 that Epifan began using pencils to sketch the world around him on any scrap paper he could find. He would give his drawings away to thank people who showed him any kindness. During a hospitalization a physician gave the boy a children' watercolor set.

Epifan then began selling drawings to summer visitors at the famous health resort area, who purchased souvenirs or extended charity. He would ask a wildly exhorbitant price for a picture, then happily accept a roll or piece of bread instead. He much preferred receiving coins over paper money. With his cash he obtained new watercolor sets, that he carried in a treasure chest. Sometimes this chest also served as bed and bedroom for the young man.

He became a familiar figure about town, setting up his box of materials on a bench or low wall, often by the Willa Patria spa building, licking his brush and creating what to many seemed unrealistic, oddly-colored and sometimes unrecognizable renditions of churches and other public buildings. Epifan also made small watercolor portraits of people on request.

Photo of Nikifor with paintings displayed

He took himself seriously and always wore a hat and tie, despite his begging compassionate Lemkos for support.

Photo of Nikifor at work

People took to calling him—perhaps ironically—Nikifor-Matejko after the celebrated historical painter, Jan Matejko (1838–1893), who had frequented the spa town of Krynica many years before.

Nikifor itself is a common Slavic name that is variously pronounced in local languages with stress on the first or second syllable. It may have been the nickname commonly used for Epifan since childhood. It is speculated that the formal name, Epifan, unusual for Lemkos and for the area, may have been chosen by the baptising priest as a way of marking the newborn baby's illegitimacy. Interestingly, Antiochus IV Epiphanes was the name assumed by the Seleucid king in power at the time of the Jews' Maccabean revolt, who had himself characterized as the image of God and bearer of victory, in Greek "ΘΕΟΥ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟΥΣ ΝΙΚΗΦΟΡΟΥ". [4]

The art world discovered Nikifor in the 1930s when development of commercial skiing was making Krynica a year-round vacation area. Many prominent artists praised his work, and foreign exhibitions were arranged. Despite the vogue his productions acquired, Nikifor's lifestyle was little affected except that he began to use guache and wax crayons for his drawings and would stamp them NIKIFOR-MALARZ or NIKIFOR ARTYSTA (painter or artist). Many of the letters he drew on his paintings seem meaningless and may have been intended to hide his illiteracy. Nikifor clung to the Uniate religion of the Lemkos, at odds with the Roman Catholicism of the dominant Polish majority. He sometimes painted himself as an elegant and respected figure and seemed particularly interested in drawing church buildings. His paintings, even of buildings, had qualities of local iconic art: gravity, stability, timelessness, lack of motion, bilateral symmetry, green background. He attempted few traditional biblical scenes. He would travel by train as far as Kraków, but showed the great city's gothic, baroque and renaissance buildings as if they had been constructed in the style of the wooden structures of Krynica. Nikifor depicted local railway stations and buildings that did not exist, often conflating what he saw in several locations or inventing elements of structure. Andrzej Osęka's critique describes Nikifor's outsider's view of the world and the admiring, ceremonial aesthetic style he adopted.

Nikifor's growing renoun enabled him, just once, to leave Poland for a vacation in Bulgaria. For this, he acquired a passport as Nikifor Krynicki (Nikifor of Krynica). The Polish government made the name official in 1962.

Photo of Nikifor at work

The turmoil of World War II obscured Nikifor's fame and he was largely forgotten for a time. Nikifor himself seemed detached from the events around him, his world being his paintings. Nikifor's work does not seem to reflect the escalating persecution of the Lemkos that occurred over his lifetime, with many intellectuals perishing in Austrian concentration camps in connection with World War I, a short-lived nationalist movement and episodes of "ethnic cleansing" that eventually killed all Jews and most Roma in the area and moved all the Lemkos out. Even when every Lemko in Krynica had been forcibly resettled to Western Poland by the Soviet government's Operation “Vistula” (Akcja “Wisła”) in 1947, Nikifor had soon returned on foot from Szczecin in northern Poland, alone except for his watercolors of seaports and ships. The local townspeople successfully petitioned for this one innocuous Lemko to be allowed to remain.

Nikifor's portrait of Ella and Andrzej Banach
Nikifor's portrait of Ella
and Andrzej Banach.

The tuberculosis that had plagued Nikifor for years seems to have progressed. He was taken into the home of Ella and Andrzej Banach (Банах), art scholars who made many photographs of the artist and compiled a book about him. They were away on vacation when Nikifor died in a convalescence home in Folusz (Фолюша), Jasno, Poland on October 10, 1968.

Most of Nikifor's tens of thousands of sketches and paintings have been lost, many discarded into the trash before he was discovered. Efforts to find any Nikifor paintings that might have been put away and forgotten in Krynica have been futile. Most Nikifor paintings are now scattered about Europe and the United States. The collection of the Muzeum Okręgowe in Nowy Sącz was begun in 1949 and now contains over 1,000 works, many of them at the associated Nikifor Museum in Krynica. A few other museums maintain collections of Nikifor's works and there have been several exhibits in various countries. On July 13, 1998 the Polish government issued four postage stamps with Nikifor illustrations.


Print References

Photo of Nikifor
  • Aleksandr, Jackowski: "Notatki o Nikiforze." Polska Sztuka Ludowa number 3-4, pages 227-236, 1985.
  • Banach, Andrzej: Nikifor Mistrz z Krynicy. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1957.
  • Banach, Andrzej: Pamiątka z Krynicy. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1959. Getty Research Institute Library Catalog: ND699.N48 B3.
  • Banach, Andrzej: Nikifor. Arkady, 1984.
  • Banach, Andrzej: "Nikifor." in Polsky Słownik Biograficzny, Arkady, 1998, volume XXII, page 96.
  • Banach, Ella, & Banach, Andrzej: Historia o Nikiforze [The Story of Nikifor]. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2004 (1966). Getty Research Institute Library Catalog: 90-B9838.
  • Bihalji-Merin, Oto: Masters of Naive Art: A History and Worldwide Survey. Russell M. Stockman, trans. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1971. SBN: 07-005257-3. Getty Research Institute Library Catalog: N7432.5.P7 B513.
  • Bihalji-Merin, Oto: Das naive Bild der Welt. Cologne: M. DuMont, pages 146-147, 1959. Getty Research Institute Library Catalog: 90-B30210. Reissued as Modern Primitives: Masters of Naive Painting. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1961.
  • Bihalji-Merin, Oto & Tomasevic, Nebojsa-Bato: World Encyclopedia of Naive Art: a hundred years of naive art. London: Frederick Muller Ltd., 1984. (English, translated from Serbo-Croatian.) Pages 453-454. Getty Research Institute Library Catalog: N7432.5.P7 W92. Reissued Scranton: Scala/P. Wilson, 1988.
  • Duc', Olena: Nykyfor Drovnjak - Famous Lemko artist. Carpatho-Rusyn American volume 9, number 2, 1987, retrieved 5 March 2003 from http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/lemkos/nykyfor.htm .
  • Gałcziński, Konstanty Ildefons: "Dramat w tunelu." Przkróroj, 1947.
  • Madeyski, Jerzy: Nikifor Krynicki. 12 reprodukcji [Tekst: Jan Madeyski]. Kraków, Wydawnictwo artystyczno-graficzne, 1970. 12 color plates. Getty Research Institute Library Catalog: 90-B12048.
  • Monroe, Gary: "The Artist Formally Known as Nikifor." Raw Vision s #62, Spring, 2008, pp. 44-47.
  • Ostoja-Zagorski, Janusz: Nikifor. 2000, 142 pages, $49.00, ISBN: 8387730181 (hard cover), available via the Polonia Bookstore.
  • Petullo, Anthony J. Self-taught and Outsider Art: The Anthony Petullo Collection. Introduction by Jane Kallir; selected bibliography by Margaret Andera. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001.
  • Slaboshpytszkyi, Mykhailo: Todosz Oszmachka; Literaturnyi Profil: Nykyfor Drovniak iz krysnytsi. Vyd-vo RADA.
  • Sydor, Oleh: "Nykyfor-Epyfanii Drovniak: vidkryttia i vidryvachi." Pamiatky Ukraпny (Kiev), number 110, pages 159-161, 1995.s
  • Szczepanek, Tadeusz: "Z badań nad twórczośćią Nikifora." Polska Stuka Ludowa number 4, pages 221-242, 1974.
  • Szczepanski, Jan Jósef: "Biskup jedzie przez morze." Twórczość number 6, 1972.
  • Szczyrbuła, Maciej: "Jeszcze o Nikiforze. Fakty, domysły o legendy." number 1, 1990.
  • Wisłocki, Seweryn: "Prczyczynek do biografil Nikifora Drowniaka, nazwanego 'Krynikim'." Polska Sztuka Ludowa numbers 3-4, pages 219-226, 1985.
  • Wolanin, Zbigniew: Nikifor. Forward by Andrzej Osekaso. Olszanica, 2000.
  • Wolf, Jerzy: "Malarze naiwnego realizmu w Polsce–Nikifor." Arkady, number 3, 1938.
  • Zagyrański, Tadeusz: Nikifor: bibliografia w 100-lecie urodzin Nikifora. Warszawa, 1995.
  • Zanozinski, Jerzy: "Nikifor i naiwni." Polska Number 11, 1967.

Additional bibliographic references are shown at http://www.lemko.org/lemko/nikifor/nik3.html

Exhibition Catalogs

Cinematic References to Nikifor

  • Łomnicki, Jan (director): "Mistrz Nikifor" (Made for television documentary, 6 minutes) after the story by Ella Banach. 1956.
  • Krause, Krzysztof (director) "Mój Nikifor" (Biopic, 97 minutes) award-winning film depicting the final 8 years of the artist's life (Polish). 2004.

Websites Referencing Nikifor

Photo of Nikifor

Museums, Galleries and Collections

Current and Recent Locations of Works

Other Private Collections (possibly not current)

  • dr Andrzej Banach, Kraków
  • Andrzej Ciechomski, Warszawa
  • prof. Jan Cybis, Warszawa
  • dr Tadeusz Frąckowiak, Poznań
  • Natalia Gałczyńctka, Warszawa
  • Alfons Karny, Warszawa
  • Władysław Kosterski, Kielce
  • doc. Ludwik Maciąg, Warszawa
  • dr Jan Mycielski, Kraków
  • prof. Janina i Kazimierz Niowie, Warszawa
  • red. Janusz Roszko, Kraków
  • prof. Hanna Rudzka-Cybisowa, Kraków
  • Ewa Sidor, Warszawa
  • ks. doc. dr Władysław Smoleń, Lublin
  • Ferdynand Solowski, Kraków
  • Gizela Szancerowa, Warszawa
  • Stanisław Szenic, Warszawa
  • doc. Bogusław Szwacz, Warszawa
  • prof. Miecysław Wejman, Kraków
  • Aleksander Winnicki, Warszawa
  • Janina Włodarska, Warszawa
  • Marian Włosiński, Krynica
  • doc. dr Jerzy Zanoziński, Warzawa

Contact

For information, contact Myron L. Pulier at pulierml@rutgers.edu

Notes

(Click on title to return to text.)

  1. Никифор. Although Polish uses the Roman alphabet, Ukrainian and Russian use Cyrillic characters. Lemko is a dialect of Carpatho-Rusyn, which has no standard orthography, necessitating transliteration. Much of the written material about Nikifor is in Polish, Lemko, Ukrainian or Russian. Place names and official records relevant to Nikifor are in Polish, but are presented here in other languages where possible.
  2. Polish pronunciation of C. The Polish C is pronounced like English TS, but CZ is pronounced like English CH as in cheese.
  3. Polish pronunciation of Ł, J, and W. The Polish Ł is pronounced like English W. The Polish J is pronounced like English Y as in yes. The Polish W is pronounced like English V. Thus Łavdoka and Jewdoka sound more or less the same.
  4. Epiphan Nikifor. A coin with such an inscription is shown HERE.

2021-11-30 mlp