Nikifor

Lemko artist

Nikifor (21 May 1895, Krynica, Austria-Hungary – 10 October 1968, Folusz, Poland), also known as Nikifor Krynicki, born as Epifaniy Drovnyak (Epifaniusz Drowniak), was a Lemko naïve painter.

Nikifor painted over 40,000 pictures – on sheets of paper, pages of notebooks, cigarette cartons, and even on scraps of paper glued together.

The topics of his art include self-portraits and panoramas of Krynica, with its spas and Orthodox and Catholic churches.Underestimated for most of his life, in his late days he became famous as a naïve painter.