With a career of over 40 years, Jan Sawka (pronounced Yan SAF-ka) is internationally known for painting, printmaking, architecture, and multi-media. His works are in the collections of over 60 international museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, N.Y., Victoria and Albert in London, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Polish National Museums, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and Museum of Modern Art in Toyama, Japan. Hi prints comprise the largest collection of works on paper of a single artist in the Library of Congress. He has created multi-media set designs for productions ranging from the Harold Clurman and Samuel Beckett Theaters in New York to the Grateful Dead′s 25th Anniversary Tour. His multi-media work has included projections of images on downtown Houston & primes skyscrapers for "Sky Power," the 40th anniversary celebration of NASA and "The Eyes" multi-media spectacle realized at Art Tower Mito, Japan in 1993. In 2003, he was awarded the Premio Lorenzo Il Magnifico Gold Medal in Multi-Media at the International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Florence, Italy for his pilot for a large-scale multi-media spectacle called "The Voyage."
Jan Sawka′s architectural and symbolic designs include the "Essen Spires," a set of four interactive large-scale sculptures using plasma glass and light and laser technology, to grace the Essen, Germany cityscape; the "Virtual Reality Pavilion," a stand-alone structure featuring high-tech screens that surround the viewer with images; and "Water in Colours," an installation combining architecture, light and sculpture for the Kaltehofe Island in Hamburg, Germany, which is a work currently in progress. Currently under consideration by the Royal Family of the United Arab Emirates, Jan Sawka′s 1996 proposal for the "Tower of Light Cultural Center" is a design for a complex of museums and performance and educational structures to be built on an island facing the Abu Dhabi downtown.
Jan Sawka has created significant visual symbols throughout his career for many important and now-historic causes. As a young man, his artworks opposed the communist regime in Poland and its violation of human expression and civil rights. In 1968 Poland, he was a leader in protests against Soviet anti-Semitic policies, which led to his punishment at the hands of the military. Exiled in 1976 from their homeland, Mr. Sawka and his family have lived in the United States ever since. Mr. Sawka has devised symbolic artworks for the Solidarity Movement, Human Rights Watch, non-nuclear future fundraisers, Holocaust memorials, and the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. Pope John Paul II blessed his activities and work in 1992. In 1996, when Mr. Sawka began work with the authorities of the United Arab Emirates on the "Tower of Light Cultural Center," he met intellectuals of the Arabic world, who included Dr. Jamal al Majaida, and the concept was born to create a far-reaching symbol of peace to be built in Jerusalem.
