Born: 1954 Basingstoke, England
Other name/s: Waldy
Biography
Art critic and documentary producer and presenter Waldemar Januszczak was born on 12 January 1954 in Basingstoke, England to Polish refugees who had arrived in England after the Second World War in 1945. His father was a policeman in Poland, a role that involved exposing Communists, but in England he became a railway carriage cleaner. When Januszczak was aged one, his father died aged 57 after he was hit by a train at Basingstoke station. His widowed mother found work as a dairymaid. Januszczak later attended Divine Mercy College, Buckinghamshire, a school for the children of Polish refugees, and it was there that he ‘became an atheist and began worshipping art instead’ (Waldemar Januszczak's official website). He then studied History of Art at the University of Manchester between 1971 and 1977.
Subsequent to his degree at Manchester, Januszczak became an art critic for the Guardian, and then chief art critic between 1979 and 1987. During that time, he published and edited three books, including Techniques of the World’s Great Painters (1980) and Understanding Art (1982) with Jenny McCleery. He was also on the judging panel for the Turner Prize in 1984 and 1985. Januszczak was then appointed head of arts at Channel 4 in 1990 and became an art critic for The Sunday Times in 1992, where he was twice voted Critic of the Year by the Press Association. In 1997 he took part in the Channel 4 Turner Prize discussion called The Death of Painting, famously remembered for Tracey Emin’s apparently drunken interlude and exit.
Januszczak’s reputation as an enthusiastic and accessible writer was beginning to take shape, and from 1997 he began making and presenting films with his own production company ZCZ Films. With ZCZ he first made a three-episode series, The Truth About Art, shown on Channel 4 in 1998, and in 1999 he presented his documentary about Emin, Mad Tracey from Margate, on the BBC. Often dubbed the David Attenborough of the art world, Januszczak has since produced many documentaries with ZCZ, covering artists such as Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rubens and Holbein and shown across Channels 4, 5 and the BBC. In 2004 he also took part in the Christmas special critics' edition of the television quiz show University Challenge on the BBC.
Januszczak has continued to write art criticism for The Sunday Times alongside his television career, often dividing opinion. in a 2006 review of an exhibition at London’s National Gallery he controversially claimed that James McNeil Whistler’s Symphony in White No 1 ‘turns out to be a clumsy bit of cake-making with thick smudges of white rubbed into the canvas in coarse, dry skid marks’ (Januszczak, 2006). He has also made appearances on programmes such as The Culture Show and Newsnight Review. Becoming a more recognisable figure on television, in 2012 Januszczak presented a four-part series The Dark Ages: An Age of Light about the art and architecture of the Middle Ages on BBC Four, which was notable in showcasing his ‘friendly presentational style, his enthusiasm, his clear thirst for knowledge’ (Kustanczy, 2021). In 2017, he contributed to the memoir of English art forger Shaun Greenhalgh, A Forger’s Tale, and in 2019 directed and narrated a television series featuring Greenhalgh entitled Handmade in Bolton on BBC Four. Soon after he began creating many hour-long documentaries for Perspective, an arts channel on YouTube.
As a prolific face of art documentaries, Januszczak’s mission has been ‘to try and tell stories of art in ways that connect with people’s lives’ (Kustanczy, 2021). This, along with the physical limitations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, led him to co-create a podcast in 2020 with art historian Bendor Grosvenor. Entitled Waldy & Bendy’s Adventures in Art, it covers a wide variety of art historical topics, and in 2022 the presenters interviewed Emin as part of their fourth season. Attributing his success to his Polish heritage, for according to him, Polish people ‘have a different way of speaking and expressing’ themselves, Januszczak has stated: ‘I’m very lucky, and I made a step into television, but what I really like is looking at art and writing about it, which is what being a critic is – it’s not about being right or wrong with your opinions; you simply want to look at art, and to write about it’ (Kustanczy, 2021).
Waldemar Januszczak lives between London and Béziers, Southern France.
Related books
- Shaun Greenhalgh, contributions by Waldemar Januszczak, A Forger's Tale (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2017)
- Waldemar Januszczak, 'Americans in Paris', The Sunday Times, 5 March 2006
- Waldemar Januszczak, 'Virgin Gaze', New Statesman, Vol. 122, Iss. 4708, 2004, p. 50
- Waldemar Januszczak, 'Rembrandt's Eyes', Biography, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2001, p. 354
- Waldemar Januszczak, 'From Rags to Riches: Art', Sunday Times, Sept. 26, 1999, p. 13
- Waldemar Januszczak, 'The Terrible Truth: Art', Sunday Times, March 29, 1998, p. 9
- Waldemar Januszczak, Sayonara Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel Restored and Repackaged (London: Bloomsbury, 1990)
- Waldemar Januszczak, 'Correspondence: Idolatry, Crucifixion and the Ten Commandments', Art Monthly, Iss. 93, Feb 1, 1986, pp. 24-25
- Waldemar Januszczak and Jenny McCleery, Understanding Art (London: Macdonald, 1982)
- Waldemar Januszczak ed., Techniques of the World's Great Painters (Oxford: Phaidon, 1980)
Related organisations
- Channel 4 (head of arts)
- Guardian (art critic)
- The Sunday Times (art critic)
- University of Manchester (student)
- ZCZ Films (owner)
Related web links
- Adam Sherwin, 'BBC makes arts programmes feel like 'homework', says presenter Waldemar Januszczak', The Independent, 2016
- Catherine Kustanczy, 'Waldemar Januszczak: Telling Stories Of Art 'In Ways That Connect With People's Lives'', The Opera Queen, 2021
- Perspective YouTube page
- Sally Newall, 'The Renaissance Unchained, BBC4 - TV Review: Waldemar Januszczak's Venice episode was a seductive bit of art history', The Independent, 2016
- The Times profile entry for Waldemar Januszczak
- 'Waldemar Januszczak: Art for the Millions', 2017
- 'Waldemar Januszczak: Art for the Millions', 2017
- Waldemar Januszczak, 'Why the art world needs to rise up against curators', Guardian, 2013
- Waldemar Januszczak's official website
- ZCZ Films, Waldemar Januszczak's production company website
