Born: 1944 Brzozowo, Poland
Year of Migration to the UK: 1968
Biography
Artist Wojciech Antoni Sobczyński was born in Brzozowo (near Rzeszów), Poland, on 12 August 1944. Although his birth certificate records the surname Schneider, inherited from his father, it was changed to Sobczyński (his paternal grandmother’s maiden name) when he was approximately 3 years old. His birth, towards the end of the Second World War, was fraught with difficulty: driven from her home by German forces, his mother, Anna Schneider, sought refuge in the forest where she gave birth. Upon her return with the newborn child, she discovered their home was being looted by Russian forces (Sobczyński to Ben Uri staff via email, 2024). In 1968, Sobczyński graduated with distinction from the Fine Art Academy in Krakow, where he studied sculpture under Professor Jacek Puget. He was subsequently awarded the Barbara Robertson scholarship, enabling him to travel to London to further his studies. He initially enrolled at the City & Guilds of London Art School before continuing at the Slade School of Art under the tutelage of Professor Reg Butler.
Sobczyński's oeuvre encompasses both painting and sculpture, though he arrived at painting through his sculptural practice. This led to the development of a style that merges three-dimensional forms with elements of painting. His artistic language, while rooted in a classical sensibility, is characterised by novel explorations of form and texture. He consistently pushes the boundaries of his materials, transforming them and subverting their intended purpose. Although his works are largely abstract and expressive, hints of figuration occasionally emerge. Despite this experimentation, a sense of discipline pervades his creations. The interplay of colour and form is central to his artistic practice, with content assuming a secondary role. Through this dynamic, he creates a dialogue between broader cultural ideas and his personal reflections on contemporary life. Later in his career, music became a significant source of inspiration. During the initial phase of the pandemic of the 2020s, Sobczyński developed two distinct cycles of work. The first, entitled 24 Isolations, drew inspiration from musical compositions exploring tonal possibilities, such as Chopin’s 24 Preludes and similar works by Bach. These pieces, while intended for wall display, are not two-dimensional. Concurrently, he produced 18 works on a common theme, again derived from music, under the title Bagatele.
Sobczyński is a prolific exhibitor, having participated in over 70 shows, and actively engages in various exhibition initiatives. Separately, as a technical sculptor, in 1989, he received a commission to produce an authorised copy of Renato Bertelli’s famous 1933 sculpture, originally titled Profilo continuo (Dux), for the Imperial War Museum. The work, appearing as a head spinning around its axis, ironically suggests an all-seeing leader blinded by his own ceaseless motion. Sobczyński acknowledged the satirical intent of Bertelli's original artwork, which mocks Mussolini, and his participation in its recreation should not be interpreted as any form of support for the former Italian dictator or his ideology. Subsequently, Sobczynski was commissioned to make a replica of the bronze Reichstag Eagle for the 1995 Hayward Gallery exhibition Art and Power: Europe under the dictators 1933-45. To show his utter revulsion for the Nazi regime embodied within the sculpture, he wrote a manifesto 'disassociating myself from everything that the object represented [...] and asked for forgiveness from my family members and other victims who perished in Auschwitz. I printed my manifesto and fixed it with resin inside the eagle's torso' (email to Ben Uri staff, January 2025).
Sobczyński has maintained an enduring working relationship with the Julian Hartnoll Gallery, where he has held nine solo exhibitions and one joint exhibition with Paul Freud. In collaboration with Galeria Bielska BWA in Bielsko, Poland, he organised and curated the Little Experiment competition in 2013 and 2015, followed by the ‘Polish Connection’ art exchange in 2016. The same year, Sobczyński had a solo exhibition at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń in Poland. Since 2017, his artwork has been featured in the public collection of the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Toruń, following the success of the Radio/Creativity duo show at the centre, co-created with Carolina Khouri. Sobczyński is a member of the Association of Polish Artists in Great Britain (APA), exhibiting biannually at the POSK Gallery in west London. In 2022, several of his pieces were included in the Polish Pavilion for NordArt, an international contemporary art exhibition and non-profit cultural initiative organised by the ACO Group in Büdelsdorf and Rendsburg. Sobczyński is also a co-founder of the Page Six Group. In 2025 he held a solo show, Barriers and Borders at the Morley Gallery, London.
Alongside his artistic practice, Sobczyński is an active figure in the Polish art writing scene. For over a decade, he has contributed articles and essays on art criticism and analysis to the London-based Polish publication Nowy Czas. In 2018, he became the London correspondent for FORMAT art magazine, published in association with the Wrocław Academy of Arts. He is also a member of POLART and a regular contributor to their magazine, Hybryda. His artistic practice was the subject of an MA dissertation in 2015 by Ewa Sobczyk at the University Mikołaja Kopernika in Toruń, supervised by Professor Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz. Wojciech Sobczyński lives and works in London. In the UK public domain, his recast of Dux is held in the collection of the Imperial War Museum, London.
Related books
- Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz, PromienioTwórczość: Carolina Khouri, Wojciech Antoni Sobczyński, exh. cat. (Toruń: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Znaki Czasu, 2017)
- Ewa Sobczyk, ‘Wojciech Antoni Sobczyński–twórca w przestrzeni pokoleń’, Zeszyty Naukowe, Vol. 5, 2017, pp. 231-250
- Martyna Sobczyk et al., Odbitka próbna = trial print (Kraków: Muzeum Sztuki Współczesnej MOCAK, 2016)
- Ewa Sobczyk, Wojciech Antoni Sobczyński (MA Thesis, University Mikołaja Kopernika, 2015)
- Rune Eraker et al., Wysiedleni = Uprooted (Kraków: Muzeum Sztuki Współczesnej, 2014)
Related organisations
- Association of Polish Artists (member)
- City and Guilds Art School (student )
- Nowy Czas (contributor )
- Page Six Group (co-founder)
- Slade School of Art (student )
Related web links
- Artinfo.pl
- APA
- Centre for Contemporary Arts
- Easter Sculptures
- Echo Gone Wrong
- Julian Hartnoll Gallery
- NordArt
- Official Page
- Polish Pavillion: NordArt
- Wojciech Antoni Sobczyński – dialogue with compositional reflections
Selected exhibitions
- Barriers and Borders (solo show), Morley Gallery, London (2025)
- Easter Sculptures (solo exhibition), St John’s Waterloo Church, London (2023)
- Beyond Borders – Polish Pavillion (group show), NordArt, Büdelsdorf and Rendsburg (2022)
- Solidarity with Ukraine (group APA show), POSK Gallery, London (2022)
- Spring Exhibition (group APA show), POSK Gallery, London (2021)
- Spring Exhibition (group APA show), POSK Gallery, London (2020)
- Ascension (solo exhibiton), Julian Hartnoll Gallery, London (2017)
- Radio/Creativity (dual exhibition with Carolina Khouri), Centre for Contemporary Arts in Toruń (2017)
- Shrouding (solo exhibition), Julian Hartnoll Gallery, London (2016)
- Wojciech Antoni Sobczynski (solo exhibition), Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń (2016)
- Little Experiment (organised and curated), Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko (2013 and 2015)
- Art and Power: Europe under the Dictators 1933-45, Hayward Gallery, London (1995)
- Group show, Imperial War Museum, London (1989)
