Mój Nikifor
overview
Nikifor :his true name Epifan Drowniak (1895—1968) left about 40000 pictures and drawings ; considered one of the most outstanding narve painters of all time.
Nikifor is a Polish national treasure. His work is so valued and renowned that the Polish government will no longer allow it to be exported. Throughout Poland, there are three museums, which are solely dedicated to his work. In addition, he has been exhibited throughout the world.
Nikifor was born deaf and dumb and little is known about his childhood except that his mother was a beggar and a prostitute and that he did not know his father. He spent much of his life as a traveling beggar and most of his days ill with tuberculosis.
During a stay in the hospital, a doctor gave him a box of watercolors and thus began his career as a naïve painter. Painting not only became the way he earned a living, but also his reason to live. He sold his small paintings as souvenir postcards. The large letters on his pictures are mostly meaningless, since he could neither read nor write; however, sometimes the word malarz (painter) can be deciphered.
Nikifor often painted himself as a person he desired to be, such as a respected official, a father or a large family, or a bishop. He is considered Poland's greatest self-taught painter.