His well-known drawing invites to enter our website. Since he sent in his work for the competition in 1981 (III prize), Zygmunt Januszewski was a true good spirit of Satyrykon – Spiritus movens of its most valuable events. The material proof for the mentioned above statement includes the following: poster and catalogue cover designs in 1984, Filip – firstly as a letterhead, many years later embodied by Tomasz Ross, occasional congratulatory cards, warm words with our following anniversaries, drawings on the covers of catalogues summing up the passing decades… All of it doesn’t even come close to show His engagement and wise help. He used to visit us almost every year, a juror in 1986, 1989, 1990, 1997, 2001 and 2011, a co-founder of “Sharp-eye skills”… Our archives contain lots of his warm, semi-formal letters – as he could keep that style even in formal correspondence. A good example might be the letter in which he expresses his joy from asking him for designing Satyrykon graphic layout, containing the thanks for “being listed as a professional” and quoting his wife in a coquettish way: “You must have grown old as they start to call you a classic”. In 1983, a year after the Warsaw premier, there was organised one of his first individual exhibitions here (“Obserwatorium rysunkowe” – “A drawing observatory”). His focus on others, not on himself, resulted in that we had to wait another 15 years for his second individual exhibition in 1997.
Elżbieta Pietraszko recalls the moment he saw Tomasz Ross “embodied” Satyrykon’s graphic logo – the knave: I’ll never forget the joy, childish joy with which he touched the Filip statue, the way he liked the buttons, shoe-laces or the stripped pantaloons – it was in 2006. During the next celebration in 2008, with tears in his eyes, Zygmunt observed as Filip, who turned 18, was handed his identity card by the president of Legnica – everyone could clearly see then that it is Januszewski who is a Philips’ father – above all they are the same height.
There are lots of reasons for which this 2017 year calendar, following the tradition of memorising great Satyrykon related artists, is exceptional for us. We’ll keep coming back to this, but for the moment let’s just remark that apart from containing the works from different periods, it also contains the biography and some comments by the Artist’s most thorough observer and critique – Dorota Folga-Januszewska, and has been designed by Maciej Januszewski.
The Satyrykon 2017 calendar promotion event will take its place on 9th December 2016 (coming Friday) at Satyrykon Gallery (Rynek 36). Traditionally, a set of calendars will be given on this day to Legnica inhabitants. Please feel invited – we start at 6 p.m.