Leszek Nowosielski and Hanna Modrzewska-Nowosielska lived in Podkowa Lesna, Poland.
Alongside the graphic arts and easel painting they began to work on porcelain, using ‘on-glaze painting’ to create dinner table sets, vases, plates and other ceramics. Leszek created works with historical and architectural motives, while Hanna made regional costumes and dance scenes. Their unique works on porcelain are full of grace and elegance and enjoyed great success during the years 1960-1970.
The works were sought after by private collectors, as well as government institutions as gifts for overseas recipients such as General de Gaulle during his memorable visit to Poland.
Whenever it was possible they would rebuild and adapt their studio to the needs and requirements of ceramic work. They were constantly searching for new ways to execute their creations and thus utilized the flexibility and versatility of ceramic material. Before dedicating himself to art, Leszek Nowosielski studied chemistry. Perhaps this was the secret of his great ability to mix and formulate remarkable and unusual appearances in his works. His subject matters ranged from mythology, glazed allegories, monumental figurative compositions, abstract friezes, as well as themes of destruction and suffering – Hiroshima, Auschwitz –never again – Katyn.
Apart from ceramics and porcelain, Leszek Nowosielski always painted; landscapes, still-lives, abstracts and popular scenes from everyday life. Towards the end of his life, his painting technique adopted plasticity and an almost three dimensional character of ceramic material, somehow translating the language of ceramics into oil and acrylic mediums. Through the application of paint, his canvasses reflected light-shadow effects that were unique to three dimensional ceramics. Ceramics and painting interacted in his art, substituting one for the other.
Leszek Nowosielski’s body of work is surprisingly vast in its variety of output: porcelain, oil and acrylic painting, exquisite drawings and abstract forms, indeed he was an artist of extraordinary imagination and together with Hanna Modrzewska-Nowosielska, as professor Stefan Gierowski wrote about them: they formed a creative, single, complementing entity.
Leszek Nowosielski and Hanna Modrzewska-Nowosielska won many prizes and awards and their works are in many museums and private collections in Poland and overseas. A large ceramic composition depicting Hiroshima is considered as one of the most important works in the center of remembrance in Hiroshima.