Roman Opalka

Since 1965, Roman Opalka has been producing a unique work made up of scores of canvasses. On each of them, the artist meticulously writes in white the next number in a successive series. Having started with the number 1 in 1965, he painted his final number, 5607249 on the day of his death in 2011. Each canvas makes up a “detail” in the assembly covering his entire life and ended definitively with his death. To mark the daily updating, Roman Opalka established a protocol of procedures—one consists in reciting figures in Polish as they are transferred onto the canvas. Another consists in closing each work session with a photographic self-portrait, the photograph then becomes a document. The image recorded, of the artist's face, bears witness to the furtive passing of time. 

Opalka’s work has been exhibited in a number of gallery and museum exhibitions including Musée National Marc Chagall, Nice, Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint Etienne, Métropole, Saint Etienne, Museum of Architecture, Warsaw, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Toyota, Minneapolis Institute of Contemporary Art, Minneapolis, and the Rice Museum, Houston, among others. His participation in Documenta 6 in Kassel Germany (1977), the XIX Biennial of Sao Paolo (1987), and Venice Biennale (1995, 2003), brought him international recognition. In 1996 he won a Special Prize from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Poland, Warsaw. Other notable prizes include a National Prize of Painting, Paris (1991), Prize, XIV Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo (1977), and Commander, Order of Arts and Letters, Paris (2009.)

Courtesy of Bernard Chauveau