Jerzy DUDA-GRACZ (1941 - 2004), Sketch for painting 2836 from the series: To Chopin - Duda Gracz

ink, paper; 7.6 x 15.5 cm (light frame);
above sheet with inscription: Lagow. 7. 2003; below sheet with inscription: PAINTING 2836 (JANÓW LUBEL. Mazurka No. 3 in A-flat major, op. 17, oil, 80 x 140 cm, 2003.

The work ''Chopin to Duda-Gracz'' is an extensive series of paintings consisting of nearly 300 works inspired by the music of Frederic Chopin. The painter spent the last four years of his life working on it, thus creating one of the largest series in the history of modern painting, which is the artist's tribute to the composer and the most notable example of the inspiration of musical works for the visual arts. The painter was already much earlier interested in the musical works of various composers. He was friends with Wojciech Kilar, and after a visit to the Beethoven-Haus Museum in Bonn, from where he brought a replica of Ludwig van Beethoven's posthumous mask, he began to think seriously about painting "something that - apart from music - would remain of the composer." In the end, however, he decided to start with Chopin. Probably not without significance here was the fact that the creator of the Revolutionary Étude, listened to in his house very often, perhaps that is why the artist had a special fondness for him.

The work has a certificate signed by the heiress Agata Duda-Gracz.