Once finished with experimenting cutting together photographic elements to something that could satisfy him artistically, he discovered painting. He also discovered photography during that time, something that captured his imagination, but only momentarily, as it quickly proved inadequate for his powerful fantasy. Warning these pictures can be disturbing.ĭespite the war Zdzisław went off to study in Warsaw, where he graduated as a designer and afterwards came back to his birthplace to design buses. When we look at pictures taken in Poland during that time, it isn’t hard to imagine these harrowing displays made a permanent impact on the young Zdzisław.

Polish soldiers surrendered in October of 1939 after they had lost 65,000 soldiers and several thousand civilians. In 1939, when little Beksiński was ten years of age, Poland was invaded by Nazi-Germany, despite just signing a non-aggression pact with Soviet Russia - the invasion that would unleash the hell hound of war.įrom history we know that during the German invasion many people died, but later, and certainly with the counter invasion of Russia, many more perished. It doesn’t require much thought about the date of his birth to bring to mind the impending tragedy the Second World War. Zdzisław Beksiński was born on February 24th, 1929, in a small southeastern town called Sanok, Poland. Now it felt like the time to look and ask myself the question: “What is this?” I think Beksiński’s work can offer us an important lesson. Now that the first butterflies of love have flown I can look at it with a different set of eyes. Without delving into what the painted nightmares meant, I kept them to myself whenever I searched for inspiration and sent them to many of my friends, all of whom had the same reaction:Īs I write this, my Pinterest board ‘illustrations’ is filled with his work.

Beksinski 1 4