Teofil Ociepka
Teofil Ociepka (born April 22, 1891 in Janów ( Upper Silesia ), † January 15, 1978 in Bydgoszcz ) was a Polish autodidactic painter, theosophist , leader of the Janów occult community.
biography
Ociepka was a miner by profession, a machine operator in the power station of the Giesche coal mine.
Called up for the Prussian army during the First World War , he became a supporter of the occult . He brought occult books to Janów, such as Œdipus Ægyptiacus (German "Seventy-two Names of God") by Athanasius Kircher . At the encouragement of Philipp Hohmann, a Swiss resident in Wittenberg , Ociepka became a member of the Rosicrucian Order. He was promoted to master of the secret sciences and received written instructions from Hohmann. He formed an occult community in Janów. He maintained contacts with the Lviv Parapsychological Society. He was convinced that his painting was influenced telepathically by Philipp Hohmann.
He began to paint around 1927 on the instructions of Hohmann. After criticism from Professor Tadeusz Dobrowolski, he rejected painting in 1930 and only began painting again during the Second World War .
His naive painting was intended to depict the struggle between good and evil. After the Rosicrucian ideas, he painted imaginary Saturn pictures with fantastic flora and fauna. After the war his painting was discovered by the writer Izabella Czajka-Stachowicz. He was recognized and preferred by the authorities as an amateur artist, although his painting had very little to do with the principles of Socialist Realism .
In 1946 he founded a group of lay painters, from which a group of lay artists “Grupa Janowska” emerged in the following years. His - including commercial - successes encouraged him to increase production at the expense of quality.
In 1959 he left his group and moved to Bydgoszcz to live with his wife, who dissuaded him from occultism.
literature
- Alfred Ligocki (Ed.): Teofil Ociepka . Wydawnictwo Artystyczno-Graficzne RSW Prasa, Warsaw 1967 ( Współczesne malarstwo polskie - Ze sztuki prymitywów ).
photos
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ociepka, Teofil |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish painter, theosophist, leader of the Janów occult community |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 22, 1891 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Janów ( Upper Silesia ) |
| DATE OF DEATH | 15th January 1978 |
| Place of death | Bydgoszcz |