Witold-K
Witold Kaczanowski, 1932–2025
I am looking for oil paintings and works on paper by Witold Kaczanowski, bought directly from private owners: no commission, no auction, no gallery. A fair valuation, complete discretion, prompt payment.
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Witold-K, the painter who made colour an absolute language. Every canvas is the pulse of living colour.
Witold Kaczanowski Witold-K
1932–2025Wit Leszek Kaczanowski, known as Witold-K, was born on 15 May 1932 in Warsaw. He studied in the graphics department of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, where his teachers included Eugeniusz Arct, Henryk Tomaszewski and Wojciech Fangor.
In 1964 he went to Paris on a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and Art, working first on rue Lamandé and later on the Quai Montebello. In Paris he met Pablo Picasso, who painted his portrait, as well as Jacques Prévert and Françoise Sagan. Returning to Poland proved impossible: the authorities had discovered he had taken out a text by Stanisław Mackiewicz.
In 1968 he moved to New York, and in the summer of 1969 to Los Angeles, where he opened a studio-gallery on Wilshire Boulevard. He worked afterwards in Santa Fe and Houston, and from 1980 lived in Denver, Colorado. In 2007 he became the first Pole given a retrospective at Sotheby's in Amsterdam.
His painting is above all about colour: saturated magentas and carmines, fields of deep black out of which hot colour erupts. He built his canvases in layers: glazes over opaque grounds, surfaces built up and scraped back, a texture that catches the light.
Late in life he returned to Poland, living in Warsaw and Konstancin-Jeziorna. He died on 12 March 2025 and was buried on 14 April in the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw. His canvases, works on paper and prints are scattered across Europe and the United States, and those are what I am looking for.
- 1932Born on 15 May in Warsaw.
- 1950sGraphics department, Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, under Arct, Tomaszewski and Fangor.
- 1964Paris, on a Ministry of Culture and Art scholarship. Studios on rue Lamandé and the Quai Montebello.
- 1964–68The Paris years: Picasso, who painted his portrait, Prévert, Sagan.
- 1968New York. His work appears in «La Chamade», the film of Sagan's novel.
- 1969Los Angeles, a studio-gallery on Wilshire Boulevard. Then Santa Fe.
- 1980Denver, Colorado, for the following decades.
- 2007The first Pole given a retrospective at Sotheby's in Amsterdam.
- 2025Dies on 12 March. Buried in the Powązki Cemetery.
Every canvas has a story. Yours too.
I buy directly and discreetly. I am looking above all for large-format canvases from the 1960s to the 1980s, though every work by Witold-K matters to me.
Oil paintings
Large canvases and small formats: magenta, carmines, deep black with colour breaking through.
Works on paper
Drawings, watercolours, gouaches, pastels, a separate and more intimate world.
Prints
Lithographs and screenprints, original print techniques.
Any condition
Including works needing restoration, without a frame, with uncertain attribution or incomplete documentation.
The market for Witold-K
Witold-K appears regularly on the Polish auction market. In the DESA Unicum archive, prices achieved for his paintings run from about 7,500 to 32,000 zł; the highest was for the large canvas Green Hole (1985, acrylic, 96.5 × 111.5 cm), 32,000 zł. Agra-Art prices the works it has available in the same band: from 7,500 zł for an ink drawing to 34,000 zł for a canvas of 100 × 130 cm.
Price is ordered above all by format: large acrylics on canvas sit at the top, smaller oils from the 1960s and 70s fall around 11,000–22,000 zł, and works on paper start near 7,500 zł. The late Samotność (Solitude) cycle (after 2005) reaches prices comparable to the early oils, which sets Witold-K apart from many painters of his generation.
Selling directly avoids auction commission (usually 15–25% of the hammer price) and gallery costs.
These figures come from the two houses' public archives: auction results at DESA Unicum, asking prices at Agra-Art. They are not a valuation of your work; format, period, condition and provenance decide the price.
Direct purchase
No intermediaries; the margin stays with the owner.
A fair valuation
Based on market data. No lowballing, no pressure.
Complete discretion
Your details and any information about the work are kept private.