Numbers painter Roman Opałka dies

Roman Opalka; photo - PAP

On August 27, the artist would have celebrated his 80th birthday.

Roman Opałka was born in France to Polish parents.

He studied at the School of Art and Design in Łódź and at the Academy of Fine Art in Warsaw. He began his project OPALKA 1965/100 in 1965, filling canvases with lines and lines of numbers.

The first canvas, white on a black background, is entitled “Detail” and starts with the number 1, ending with 35327.

As time passed, the background became lighter, and his last “details” with numbers reaching five million, were done in white paint on a white canvas.

The art of Roman Opałka aroused controversy, nonetheless his paintings are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and Centre Pompidou in Paris.

In 2010 an unknown buyer purchased three of his “details” at Sotheby’s in London for Ł713 250 – the highest price ever paid for the work of a Polish artist.

The first “Detail” is in the collection of the Art Museum in Łódź, which is also to receive the painter’s last work. (ek/pg)