Don Quixote I
Jerzy Panek
Polish, 1918–2001
1958
A 1958 woodcut in which Jerzy Panek reimagines Don Quixote as a spindly, machine‑like assemblage of repeated black marks, testing how a literary hero can be translated into abstract, rhythmic form.
You first notice a tall, lattice‑like figure on stilted legs with a smaller companion, both built from short horizontal dashes and vertical bars that give the image a staccato, architectural rhythm against the pale paper.
The print shows how postwar modernist artists used traditional woodcut technique to bridge folk printmaking and geometric abstraction, reducing narrative subjects to rhythmic, structural signs that opened new directions in graphic storytelling.
Medium
Woodcut
Dimensions
composition: 19 1/8 x 13 7/8" (48.5 x 35.3cm); sheet: 23 1/4 x 18 11/16" (59 x 47.5cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Arthur Lejwa
Accession
472.1961
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
