Four Riders of Apocalypse

Tadeusz Kowalski was born in 1939 in Zychy, in the Konecki district, the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 1952, he tried unsuccessfully to get into the State Secondary School of Theatre Technology in Warsaw. In 1954, he enrolled at the Secondary School of Visual Arts in Kielce, but he did not complete the school. In 1958, he settled down in Szczecin. Professionally, he worked in various establishments in the food industry. In 1986, he received a disability pension, and since then, he devoted himself to sculpting with increasing passion. In 1994, he started to work on the cycle' Bible Read with a Chisel', which eventually consisted of more than 130 works. One of them is 'The Apocalypse According to St John'. Tadeusz Kowalski perfectly conveyed the horror of this vision in his bas-relief. The terrible horsemen are trampling the world in a tight formation, leaving death and destruction in their wake, while the hands of God, which form the axis of the composition, hold their hair like reins. The scene is exceptionally dynamic and thoughtful. The biblical cycle has become Tadeusz Kowalski's passion, and each work was well told and composed in terms of technique.

Iwona Karwowska