Piotr Naliwajko and the Group of Three

By Jonathan Shih

Piotr Naliwajko was born in Poland in 1960. He graduated from the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts in 1984.

With two colleagues from the Academy, he founded the famed “Group of Three”, who exhibited their work on the sides of trolleys, in prisons, and in churches. The group, led by the wildly outspoken Naliwajko, brought lush, Renaissance-inspired work, injected with modern political commentary, to the masses. Their guerrilla “exhibitions” and “happenings” generated tremendous acclaim and controversy and were attende

d by up to ten thousand people. The attention eventually resulted in two documentary films being made about Naliwajko and his colleagues, “The Pretentious Trio” and “Brothers”.

Naliwajko’s paintings have since been exhibited in over 100 solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Poland, and the U.S. He has been featured in cover stories in Art Expression Magazine, and profiled in Décor Magazine, Fine Art Magazine, Profile Weekly Magazine and the La Jolla Art Monthly. He has received awards in Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, and France, as well as from the Athenaeum in La Jolla, CA and the Art Institute of San Diego.