Polish artist Wilhelm Sasnal wins one of Europe’s top art honors

Polish art star Wilhelm Sasnal has been awarded the Rubens Prize by the German city of Siegen, one of Europe’s leading honors for painting.

Launched in 1957 and named after the Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, the prize is awarded every five years to a European artist in recognition of outstanding achievements in painting and graphic art.  

The jury praised Sasnal’s “expressive kaleidoscope of the present,” saying his work combines personal experience with collective memory and political themes. 

It described his art as “reflecting both the analog and digital reality, while preserving its sovereign artistic autonomy.”  

Sasnal, born in the southeastern Polish city of Tarnów in 1972, has emerged over the last two decades as one of Europe’s preeminent contemporary painters. 

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