Day: 15 February 2023

Museum of Ceramics in Bolesławiec, together with the Bolesławiec Cultural Centre – International Ceramics Centre, is beginning to publish a series of posts presenting artists born in Bolesławiec or associated with our city. This is one of the elements accompanying the exhibition devoted to the activities of the Bolesławiec artistic community prepared by the Ceramics Museum within the framework of the third instalment of the “Friends for the new Museum” project

In the first post, we recall the figure of the eminent artist and educator, the late Jolanta Ajlikow-Czarnecka, who for many citizens of Bolesławiec remained “the beloved Professor” until the end of her life.

Jolanta Ajlikow-Czarnecka (born 29 July 1929 in Łódź) studied painting under Wojciech Weiss, Adam Marczyński, Czesław Rzepiński and Jonasz Stern, and graphics under Witold Chomicz at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, from which she graduated in 1956. In 1954, she settled in Bolesławiec, where she discovered her second vocation – art education for children and young people. She worked at the Vocational School Complex in Komuny Paryskiej Street, the Pedagogical Secondary School and Secondary School for Kindergarten Teachers, Primary School No. 5 and the Youth Cultural Centre. For the longest time (22 years) (1970-1992), she taught art education at Wł. Broniewski Secondary School No. 1.

As an educator, she became known as a charismatic, extremely dynamic person of great sensitivity, endowed with the courage of uncompromising, honest expression. She was always authentic and true to the hierarchy of values she professed. Her ability to find the element of beauty and truth in people placed her among the most outstanding art teachers in Poland. She obtained the highest, third, degree of pedagogical specialisation, and in 1985 she began to implement her own curriculum for teaching visual arts. In over 30 years of teaching, she has educated a number of well-known cultural figures, including artists, critics and art historians. She had close, almost family-like bonds with her students, which continued long after she graduated. For many years, she was the main initiator of the District Art Knowledge Tournament, which she created in 1972 with the aim of opening up and sensitising children and young people to art. Since 2009, the tournament has borne her name.

At all times, the artist combined her teaching work with her own creative work. She practised painting, drawing and printmaking, searching for diverse forms of expression. In addition to oil paintings, she created pastels, expressive portraits painted in acrylics and collages made mainly of paper as constructions composed in contrasts. She was also involved in paratheatre and performance movement. Her work shows a fascination with the idea of “pure form”, striving for an abstract geometrisation of the depicted world, emphasised by a rippling colour scheme. She has presented her work at solo exhibitions in Bolesławiec, Zgorzelec and Jelenia Góra, as well as at many group exhibitions in Poland and abroad. She has been honoured with, among others: Medal of the Commission of National Education, Gold Cross of Merit, Order of Polonia Restituta and awards and distinctions from the Minister of Education, the Minister of Education and the Minister of Culture and Art.