In the 2023 Special Edition of The Arabian Breeders’ Magazine, we interviewed five artists from Poland.
Poland is synonymous with Arabian horses, not just through the breeders in the country, but through the many talented artists that live there. In The Arabian Breeders’ Magazine, we celebrate some of these artists, who help capture the heart of Poland through their brush. In our final part, we focus on the art of Zbigniew Kotowski.
I am a Polish painter working mainly in pastel and oil techniques. The subject of my works are mainly horses, especially Arabian horses, but I also paint other animals and portraits of the people.
I decided to become a painter as a three-year-old child, after drawing all night long. It may sound funny, but I have never changed my mind since then.
The Arabian horse, as the subject of a painting, is something natural in Polish culture. Almost all of us in Poland grew up surrounded by these kind of paintings. They were presented mostly as postcards framed almost like real paintings in many Polish houses. The famous equine painters such as Kossak, Brandt and Chełmoński have influenced many future Polish artists, including me. I created my first paintings with Arabian horses when I was in high school with an artistic profile in Katowice.
For the first time in my life, I saw Arabian horses quite late, in 1988, at Janów Podlaski, and I remember it was a real aesthetic shock for me. I fell in love at first sight with this miracle of nature that is the Arabian horse. The harmony of movement, perfect proportions, and delicate structure enchanted me. For a young man from Silesia, where one could only see heavy, large Silesian horses, it was a discovery of the most beautiful creature under the sun.
In my 40-plus year career, I have made several thousand paintings. It is difficult for me to point out one of the most important, but if I had to choose one, a very important painting would be my oil painting of Gazal al Shaqab against the background of the stable in Janów Podlaski for His Highness Sheikh Qatar Al Thani.
Also very important is my series of 12 pastels of historical Arabian stallions that were very significant for Polish breeding. It was a very demanding project that took me almost two years because I had to recreate how the horses looked based only on archival materials such as black and white photographs.
I mainly paint portraits of horses based on photographs and very often, it is difficult to choose the most important ones to show the horse out of the frame, by which I mean almost like the real one. I can point out a few paintings that are very popular among my fans on Facebook Zbig Kotowski-Art, such as the portraits of Bask, Ecaho, Ferrum, Pogrom, Piruet, Kwestura and more recently, an oil painting depicting Pianissima’s son, Prometheus.
One of the most important events in my career was participation in the Autumn Salon in Paris in 2016, where the exhibition was viewed by several thousand viewers and they highly appreciated my paintings. I also greatly appreciate the invitation of the late Mr Professor Andrzej Strumiłło to help illustrate his wonderful book, The Eastern Horse. That was a great honour for me.
The horse theme in Polish art and culture is deeply rooted. We have had and currently have many outstanding painters and illustrators. My only regret is that there is no single place in Poland dedicated only to horse-themed art. Artists meet only during show and sports events, the principal place being Janów Podlaski during the Arabian Horse Days. My dream is to create an institution, a museum gathering artists, organising exhibitions, seminars, and so on, in order to maintain tradition and so that everyone can afford to have a painting in their home.
Cover photograph is Amir Jamaal
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