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Lidia Groblicka trained in the 1950s at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts under the direction of Ludwick Gardowski, one of Poland’s leading printmakers, Groblicka’s early woodcuts display the influences of the then current fashion - the social realism movement. Her sympathetic portraits of the proud peasant workers glorifies them and their work, yet the powerful and rhythmic lines lend the prints a harmony and gentleness unusual in work of this genre.

Unexpectedly, Groblicka was able to leave Poland and settle in Great Britain, a move that radically changed her life. The unhappiness of the separation from her family and lxwneland was partly eased by her marriage and the birth of her son. During this ‘London period’ of 1962-66 her work also altered. Instead of finely crafted pear wood printing blocks, Groblicka used linoleum, a common type of floorcovering. Her lines became thick and heavy, and images depicting the ideals of the social realism movement were replaced by those of homesickness.

The loneliness felt in London was compounded by cultural shock and alienation upon her arrival in the harsh and barren landscape of Australia. Groblicka in her portrait of Australian suburbia ‘For the individualist only’ 1969 with its endless rows of little houses, illustrates to the viewer the affect upon her of this foreign and hostile country.

In 1970 the Royal South Australian Society of Arts was exhibiting only one or two works of each artist in members exhibitions and these restrictions led Lidia Groblicka to exhibit at the Off the Beaten Track Gallery (later Sydenbam Gallery) run by Rachel Biven. The encounter was a happy one, both professionally and personally for Lidia Groblicka, for the friendship and support she received from Biven.

Despite the strangeness of the country and the negative judgement made of her work, Groblicka continued to pursue her art career. Memories of her homeland and its simple folk art filled sheets of Japanese paper: rows of sunflowers gleefully nodding in a field or with happy smiling faces, meadows full of busy and cheerful insects, a shepherd with his sheep and hillsides dotted with wooden ‘chalet’ cottages.

In 1972, Groblicka commenced a series of woodcuts based on the tree of life, a traditional European motif.
This moving group of images reflects the violent swings of mood she experienced. The images range from Crying Tree, 1972, its branches laden with sad, tired faces rather than leaves, and the inevitable end of life as depicted in Dead Tree, 1972, to the hope and joy expressed in Tree of Two, 1972, and Sun Tree, 1972.

Slowly, recognition of Groblicka’s work has come, with her inclusion in the Print Council of Australia’s national touring exhibition ‘With the Imprint of Another Culture’ and in the Australian National Gallei bicentennial exhibition Prints and Australia: Pre-settlement to Present. She is now represented in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia and Australian National Gallery, who have an extensive group of her prints.

Despite setbacks, Lidia Groblicka’s art has continued to flourish; as an observer of life around her, she has created warm and pithy commentaries on our society and the idiosyncrasy of the human race. Her gently naive prints enriched by wit and humour display a disarming honesty, and express a belief in the strength of the human spirit As a nation, we are the richer for her work, which is, at last, receiving the attention it deserves.

-Janie Gillespie
  Department of Australian Prints
  Australian National Gallery, Canberra