Tadeusz Gajl

Title page of his most famous book

Tadeusz Gajl (* 1940 in Vilnius , Lithuanian SSR ) is a Polish artist known for his modern illustrations of the Polish noble coats of arms .

biography

After successfully studying at the Łódź Art Academy , Tadeusz Gajl worked from 1966 as a designer specialist in a fabric factory in Białystok . Between 1975 and the imposition of martial law in 1981 , he worked monthly as the art director of kontrasty . After that he devoted himself completely to art. In 1990 he was also one of the co-founders of Tygodnik Białostocki , a weekly newspaper in Białystok. He designed the graphics of hundreds of books from various Polish publishing houses.

Gajl has been interested in Polish heraldry since 1983 and drew more than 4,500 illustrations of the Polish coat of arms of the former aristocratic republic of Poland-Lithuania . Because they are not shown true to the original, but can often be found on the Internet and in foreign publications, his coat of arms illustrations are often referred to as herb gajlowski or Gajlesque coat of arms .

Gajl is also known as a draftsman of some new coats of arms (e.g. city arms of Białystok and the Podlaskie Voivodeship ).

Important publications (selection)

• Polskie rody szlacheckie i i herby . Ponad 20,000 nazwisk, 1,275 barwnych herbów, 200 herbów czarno-białych, Benkowski-Verlag 2003, 3rd edition, ISBN 978-83-88045-01-1
• Herby Szlacheckie Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodow , L&L, Gdańsk, 2006, 1st edition, ISBN 978-83-88595-98-1
• Herbarz polski . Od średniowiecza do XX wieku, L&L, Gdańsk, 2007, ISBN 978-83-60597-10-1

Web links

• Herby szlacheckie (Polish)
• Search engine for the Polish coat of arms (Polish)
• Gajl's biography at the "Instytut genealogii"
• Tadeusz Gajl on Facebook

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gajl used z. For example, in his illustrations, instead of the original Polish coats of arms, the German coat of arms form from 1970. Source: Ottfried Neubecker: Wappenkunde , table of coat of arms shapes, p. 51