The exhibition of Rafał Olbiński's works is already the third exhibition held under the Gallery on the Fence project started and curated by Leszek Mądzik and run by Lublin's Stary Theatre.
Rafał Olbiński was born in Poland. He graduated from the architecture program of the Warsaw Polytechnic. Olbiński immigrated to the United States in 1981, where he soon established himself as a prominent painter, illustrator and designer. For his artistic achievements, he has received more than 150 awards, including Gold and Silver Medals from the Art Directors Club of New York, and Gold and Silver Medals from the Society of Illustrators in New York and Los Angeles.
In 1994 he was awarded the International Oscar for The World’s Most Memorable Poster, Prix Savignac in Paris. In the same year he received the Creative Review Award for the Best of British Illustration in London. In 1995 his poster was chosen as the official New York City Capital of the World Poster in an invitational competition by a jury led by Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In the following year he won the Steven Dohanos Award for the best painting in the Annual Member Exhibition of the Society of Illustrators.
In 2002, a selection of Olbiński paintings was included in the Grand Space projection in Grand Central Terminal, as a highlight of the Earth Day Celebration in New York. The other artists featured in the show were Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol. In 2002 he created the set designs for the Opera Company of Philadelphia’s performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, highly acclaimed by critics in the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Olbiński was awarded by the President of the Republic of Poland the highest award in the field of arts, the gold medal, Gloria Artis (2006), and the Polonia Restituta Officer’s Cross (2012). In 2013 Olbiński received the honorary title of Outstanding Pole in the Teraz Polska (Poland Now) competition.
Rafal Olbiński’s works are included in the collections of the National Arts Club in New York, the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress in Washington, Suntory Museum in Osaka, Japan, the Poster Museum in Warsaw, Poland, and others throughout Europe and the United States. They are also part of a number of private and corporate collections in the United States, Japan and Europe.