Quo Vadis Sculpture GardenBoguslawa Iwanoskiego (b. ca. 1933 or 1934)

Used with permission of the photographer, Sophie Lepetit

Used with permission of the photographer, Sophie Lepetit

Used with permission of the photographer, Sophie Lepetit

Status

Extant

Address

Tyrawa Wołoska, Województwo podkarpackie, 38-535, Poland

Visiting Information

The garden is open to the public. When at home the artist is gladly willing to inform visitors about his work and show them his creations.

View All Images

About the Artist/Site

The community of Tyrawa Woloska in the south of Poland, not far from the border with Ukraine, is known by many because it is the site of Quo Vadis, an exhibition of numerous wooden sculptures installed in the garden of the private home of folk artist Boguslawa Iwanoskiego (also known by the Slavicized name Boguslav Ivanoski).

Ivanovski was born around 1933 or 1934 in Dorhun, in what was then the Polish district of Grodno. However, after the Second World War, the allied powers redrew the borders in Eastern Europe, so the village then became part of Belarus. This meant that the Russian economic system was imposed, including the collectivization of agriculture. Opposition of the villagers to this measure was brutally repressed: Ivanovski's father was imprisoned, his brother was executed, and he himself, although rather young, was deported to Russia, where for a number of years he was forced to work in a labor camp.

In later years, still in Russia, he received training as a car mechanic. Finally, in the early 1960s Ivanovski returned to Poland, where he at first lived in the house of a sister. In 1961 he settled in Szczecin, a harbor town in northern Poland along the Baltic Sea, where he got a job as a service technician at the local public transport company.

In the course of the 1960s Ivanovski began to focus upon making art, initially writing poetry and making paintings, but he soon turned to sculpting wood, which would become his lifelong passion. He joined the Klubu Plastyków-Amatorów i Twórców Ludowych (Club of Amateur Painters and Folk Artists) and took part in various exhibitions, including one in the context of Poland’s well known Centralne Dożynki (Central Harvest Festival).

After a stay of some twenty five years in Szczecin in the far north, in 1986 Ivanovski moved to Tyrawa Woloska, a village located in the south of the country. He came to love this area because it reminded him of the region where he was born.

Since he had begun carving since the 1960s, he had accumulated an extensive collection of wooden sculptures in several sizes, including a number that are larger than life. In general, these works have a naturalistic character and are sculpted in a classical folk art style referential to the area. As his house in Tyrawa Woloska had a large garden, he decided to transform it into an open-air exhibition area. He equipped the space with various sheds where he grouped a selection of his larger sculptures; the garden also has freestanding sculptures. In addition, part of Ivanovski’s oeuvre, including a series of wooden shields with reliefs, is situated indoors. After the outside gallery, named Quo Vadis, was opened to the public, it soon attracted many interested visitors and tourists.

His work reflects his attachment to his native Poland. The collection includes sculptures and sculpted reliefs that refer to important personalities and events across Poland’s history, including Polish kings and princes, the statesman Józef Pilsudski (with a series of works depicting various stages in his life) and the Katyn Massacre. Another series of 24 sculptures is devoted to Pope John Paul II; there are also characters derived from fairy tales and portrayals of common people.

In his early eighties, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his artistic calling in March 2016, Ivanovski was awarded a bronze medal by the government, handed out by the chairman of the parliament of Podkarpackie province.

Because of his advanced age processing wood is now becoming rather hard for the artist, so he is considering switching to other artistic media, such as making ceramics or working with concrete.

The garden is open to the public. When at home the artist is gladly willing to inform visitors about his work and show them his creations.

- Henk van Es