Elzbieta Radziwill

I grew up in a family of artists and art amateurs, so even in the darkest time of communism we were surrounded by beauty and the omnipresent gray and uncertainty didn’t touch us as much. Art has always been a form of escape to me. 

I graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and was lucky enough to be taught by some of the greatest Polish graphic artists that were part of the Polish School of Posters, which was famous for combining often vibrantly colorful painting gesture with lapidarity of form in drawing as well as humor and fantasy. Time spent in their studios shaped my passion for painting and the techniques that I use. 

I draw inspiration from nature, animals, people and their different cultures, which I encounter during my extensive travels to Asia, the Americas, and Europe. I paint from a hiding place presenting my objects as if they were undisturbed, left in their own world.  

A characteristic feature of my paintings is the persistent search for the flickering light in changing weather, time of day, seasons. My paintings are in many private collections in France, Spain, Italy, Austria, America and Poland.

  • Paris, Espace Sisley, 2001
    Warsaw, Sadyba open gardens, 2011
    Bordighera, Cultural Center, 2015
    Warsaw, Soho Gallery, 2012
    Warsaw, Prom Gallery, 2016
    Paris, Galerie Guillaume, 2017
    Paris, Galerie Guillaume, 2021

Circulant en arabesques, pensive et souriante comme un petit bouddha, dans la tranquillité des lampes et la profondeur des paravents, Elzbieta Radziwill dispose d’un monde qui lui est propre et où elle passe sans imposer son règne. Il est peuplé d’antilopes pas surprises par le flash, de papillons en vol ou en collection, cloués au papier ou déployés comme des cerfs-volants. Parfois sa toile a des accents sous-marins, mais où la lumière et donc la couleur aurait bizarrement retrouvé ses droits. Les oiseaux y sont des poissons, les arbres de grandes algues durcies. Un pélican se déploie plume par plume comme pour déclamer un poème. Parfois elle n’a pas oublié la neige, le temps se prend dans la glace phosphorescente, un cerf brame. Et parfois dans ce monde de biches traversantes se glisse sans y penser une silhouette humaine…
Philippe d’Ornano