Andrzej Novak-Zempliński

A painter, an architect, a restauranteur of ancient monuments. Many of his paintings depicted horses. An art visionary (www.pcbj.pl).

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Born in 1949 in Olsztyn.

Andrzej Novak-Zempliński was born in Olsztyn in 1949. In 1971, he started studying at the Arts Faculty of Mikołaj Kopernik University in Toruń. Then, he continued studying at the Painting Faculty of Academy of Arts in Warsaw at prof. Michał Bylina’s and prof. Ludwik Maciąg’s studios. He graduated in 1976 with a honours degree.

His professors M. Bylina and L. Maciąg, the well-deserved educators, were horse lovers and popularisers of horses and battlepieces in painting and, doubtless, they made a contribution to his declaration as a horse painter.

A. Novak-Zempliński showed his water-colours, pastels and drawings at the Jubilee Horse Auction in Książ in May 1974. But his official debut took place at the BWA salon in Sopot, at the exhibition “Team in painting” in August 1975 on the occasion of III Europe Championships in Horse Driving.

He likes easel painting but deals also with the architectural design, preservation of ancient monuments and gardens. He was an expert for the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, specialized in historical horse carriages, saddles with accessories and harnesses. He is a member of the Main Board of the Old Weapon and Colours Association and the President of its Metropolitan Department as well as a founder and President of the Domus Polonus Association incorporating the owners of ancient country seats and of Polish Coach Society that deals with museum management, historical horse carriages and propagation of the traditional horse driving.

Since 1980, he has been dealing with reconstruction and maintenance of the ancient courtly complex in Tułowice; he received the First-Degree Prize from the Ministry of Culture and Art in 1998 for this work and the most prestigious European prize in the domain of cultural heritage protection – the Europa Nostra Medal in 1999.

The cultural heritage of Polish court and the tradition of the gentry are the main subjects of Andrzej Novak-Zempliński’s collecting interests; he re-equips the ancient interiors of the court in Tułowice but the special part of these sets is the unique collection of courtly horse carriages, harnesses and accessories.

At present, the collection counts 24 carriages, wherein a half of them has the established origin and the most of them comes from the known Polish coaching firms including the leading Warsaw companies of 19th and early 20th centuries. The carriage exhibition is located at the adapted building of the old stable and is available for visitors.

His paintings show mainly horses at various aspects of their use. They are portraits of the horses well-deserved in breeding, the outstanding racehorses, saddle-horses and coach horses at work, at stable, at grass as well as the scenes of equestrian shows, horse fairs and battlepieces. These paintings are owned by many outstanding breeders, owners, horse lovers and sporting art collectors from Western Europe and America

Go to the artist’s entry in the Polish Digital Equestrian Library (click)