Wladyslaw Dutkiewicz (21/2/1918 in Stara Sol, Poland - 2/10/1999 in Adelaide, Australia) was a notable Polish language playwright and artist, winning multiple awards. He emigrated to Australia in 1949.
Painter, sculptor, actor, stage designer, theatre director. Younger brother of artists Jan Dutkiewicz (Poland) and older brother of Ludwik Dutkiewicz (Australia). Father of artists Michal (now commercial artist), Adam (art critic, historian & painter) & Ursula Dutkiewicz (ceramist & sculptor).
STUDIES: Academy of Fine Arts, Cracow, Poland, 1935-37; Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, 1937-38; National Theatre, Lwow, Poland 1939.
CAREER: Throughout the war he worked for the Resistance, and was taken prisoner by both the Soviets and the Nazis. His exhibitions of mostly expressionist and abstract paintings 1946-1996 included ninety solo and group exhibitions, among the latter in Germany, 1946; England, 1954, 1961; and America, 1961; as well as Olympic Games, National Gallery of Vctoria, 1956; Survey 1, NGV, 1958; 1st Helena Rubinstein Travelling Art Scholarship, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1958; Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, 1959; Museum Of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne, 1961, 1996-97; New Directions, Newcastle City Art Gallery, 1962; Critics’ Choice, Contemporary Art Society, Adelaide, 1967; South Australian painters, Adelaide Festival Centre, 1974; 50 Years of SA Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, 1978; Painting in South Australia Today, AGSA, 1981; Five Polish Artists in Adelaide, AFC, 1986; Polish-Australian Artists, AFC 1994-95; Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne, 1985, 1990; Adelaide Town Hall, 1993-94; 20th Century Style: Furniture, AGSA, 2003; and two or three person exhibitions at Royal SA Society of Arts Gallery, Adelaide, 1951; University of Adelaide, 1966; and Kensington Gallery, Adelaide 1991.
On arriving in Adelaide he designed sets for several plays, then from 1956, following injuries received in a traffic accident for some years was forced to give up painting and returned to stage production. Drawing on war-time experience as director of the Lwow Opera and of his own theatre in DP camps in Bavaria after the war he formed the Art Studio Players in Adelaide, working with the “Method,” 1959-62. He also directed two plays for the Adelaide University Theatre Guild, in 1959 and 1967, and later appeared as an actor in several television dramas for Crawford Productons in Melbourne. In the 1950s and 60s he was widely regarded as a leader of the modernist movement in Adelaide. He held retrospective exhibitions at RSASA in 1961; at Lidums Gallery, Adelaide, 1974; Greenhill Galleries, 1989; Hilton International Hotel, 1991; RSASA, 1993, 2005; and BMG Art, 1996.
AWARDS: Cornell Prize (CAS of SA) 1951, 55, runner-up 1953; finalist Blake Prize 1954, Dunlop Prize 1955; several gold and silver medals, Royal Adelaide Exhibitions 1952, 1957; shared Advertiser Prize with Erica McGilchrist, 1956; South Australian government grant 1976, 1993.
REP.: The Vatican; Australian National Collection (now Artbank); AGSA; NGV; TMAG; Newcastle Region Art Gallery; Hamilton Art Gallery; University of Queensland; Flinders University; State Library of South Australia.