Jan Żak - Polish sculptor from Brazil

Already as a child, he was distinguished by his exceptional artistic ability, and his talent allowed him to leave South America to study in Europe. Jan Żak, as he is referred to, is a sculptor from Poland whose works have made a lasting mark on Brazilian culture and art. In this article, you will learn more about his biography and his work.

Jan Żak (1884-1961), also known as João Zaco Paraná , was an accomplished sculptor and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro. He was born in Brzeżany, which today lies in Ukraine. At the age of 12, he left with his parents for Brazil and it is there that we can still admire his works today.

It can be said that the artist entered the fascinating world of art already as a child , when he created, among other things, clay figurines. He learned carpentry from his father - at that time he also started carving wooden utensils and figures of saints, which indicated the great talent of the future sculptor.

Jan Żak was educated at the Academy of Fine Arts and Industry in Paraná (Escola de Belas Artes e Indústrias do Paraná) and the aforementioned Academy of Fine Arts in Rio de Jane iro ( Escola Nacional de Belas Artes do Rio de Janeiro) . When he was 19, he received a scholarship from the government and went to Belgium, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels ( Academia Real de Belas Artes em Bruxelas) . In 1923, he came back to Brazil and settled in Rio de Janeiro. Today he is considered one of the representatives of the artistic renewal movement of the 1920s.

The artist left behind many significant works. Worth mentioning here is the Monument to the Sower in Curitiba . It presents a peasant who walks without shoes in a field, sowing seeds. The whole work is a unique tribute to the Polish settlers who settled in Brazil and contributed to its development in South America. The whole work was created in 1925, on the occasion of the centenary of the country's independence.

Jan Żak also created the sculpture 'Motherhood' in 1907, which was placed in the Botanical Garden in Curitiba to mark the three-hundredth anniversary of the Brazilian city. It shows a kind of dialogue with photography , which was a source of great inspiration for him, especially in the early stages of his work . His other works also show his interest in ordinary South American people , and he created numerous sculptures and busts of them.