Ewa Juszkiewicz's Surrealist Portrait: "Bez tytułu" (za Abrahamem van den Templem) at Royal Łazienki Museum

This exhibition showcases "Untitled" (after Abraham van den Templem), a surrealist portrait by contemporary Polish artist Ewa Juszkiewicz. Known for her distinctive style of replacing faces in classical portraits with abstract or organic forms, Juszkiewicz transforms a 17th-century Dutch painting into a thought-provoking commentary on representation and perception.

Ewa Juszkiewicz, one of Poland's most recognized contemporary artists, is featured with her striking painting "Untitled" (after Abraham van den Templem). Her artistic practice is characterized by surrealist portraits where she replaces the faces of figures from European art history, spanning from the Renaissance to the early 20th century, with unique and often unsettling transformations. These transformations involve surreal deformities, unusual objects, or dense clusters of hair, prompting questions about how a portrait is perceived without a face. Juszkiewicz masterfully juxtaposes the rigid, representative formulas of Old Master painting with expressive deformations that lean towards the grotesque. The specific work displayed at the Royal Łazienki Museum is a reinterpretation of a portrait of aristocrat Odilia van Wassenaar by the Dutch Baroque painter Abraham van den Temple. In Juszkiewicz's version, the sitter's face is obscured by a conical structure that appears more like a torturous device than an item of clothing. This deliberate alteration transforms the painting from a depiction of a specific individual into a commentary on the conventions of representative portraiture, emphasizing the richness of costume and accessories while hinting at the sitter's emotional state, which may not align with the idealized female representation typical of the 1655 original.

Admission to view the painting is included with a joint ticket to the museum's objects. Ticket prices for various passes can be checked on the museum's website.