His work includes portraits, drawings and security and design elements on banknotes.
Kanior started at the State Security Printing Works (PWPW) in Warsaw in 1977, shortly after graduating from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, north-central Poland.
The artist said that this type of work suited him. “In this profession, the creative process took months, so you had to be patient. I had that patience,” he said.
His early work included postage stamps and a commemorative block related to the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
His major breakthrough at PWPW was engraving Romuald Traugutt's portrait for a 20-złoty Polish banknote.
He worked in Warsaw for four years before emigrating to Germany shortly before martial law was declared in Poland in 1981. He started working at a security printer in Berlin and stayed there for 20 years.
His major success there came with the 5-mark German banknote featuring Bettina von Arnim, which remained in circulation until Germany adopted the euro. The work opened the door to international opportunities. He gained recognition in the profession and began working on increasingly complex engravings.
He later worked on banknotes for Georgia and Armenia, and his final banknotes at the Berlin printer were for Estonia.
After 20 years, he began working with a major Munich security printer, eventually returning to Poland after Poland joined the EU.
The artist said he had dreamed of a future like the one Czesław Słania, an engraver and postage stamp designer, had built for himself. Słania worked at the same Warsaw printing works as Kanior before moving to Sweden, where he quickly became the royal engraver. Kanior said he admired Słania's freedom and independence.
Kanior now works remotely from his studio in Koszalin, sending his work digitally to the printer.
He divides his 40-year career into two periods: traditional hand engraving and computer-assisted work. Traditional engraving involved manually cutting lines and dots into a steel plate, while today he works on a tablet. He says a complicated job that once took months can now take around four weeks.
His work has appeared on banknotes still in circulation in countries including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Armenia, Georgia and Oman. He also worked on the euro series, including the image of Europa used in the watermark.
(sp)
Source: PAP