1931 - 2011 A Polish conceptual artist, painter, graphic artist.He was decorated with the Knight?s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restitute (2011), the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture Gloria Artis, and the Commander?s Cross of the Order of Arts and Letters in France. He was a winner of the competition at the 7th International Print Biennale in Bradford (1968), the 3rd International Print Biennale in Kraków (1969), C.K. Norwid Art Critics? Award (1970) and Kiserring Mönchehaus Museum Award, Goslar (1993).

In 1965, Roman Opałka began to pursue his own artistic attitude through the creative order he selected and identified, which was referred to as Opałka 1965 / 1 - infinity programme. In 1970, he decided to resign from other forms of expression, totally committing himself to the programme, which he continued for his whole life. The assumptions of the programme comprised: paintings, initially painted in tempera and later in acrylic on a canvas sized 196×135 cm; the first detail was painted in white paint on a black background; the whiteness of numbers was the same in the case of each successive painting, while the background  whitened by the artist by 1%  got closer and closer to white; there are approximately 25 thousand numbers in each painting; the magnetic record of the numbers, which were always uttered in Polish and also written on the canvas; photographs taken in the analogue technique, on a black and white 24×36 mm photosensitive tape, shot always as portraits; drawings, being a continuation of the paintings, made outside the workshop, as Travel Cards, in black ink on white paper, sized 33×24 cm. Over time, the artist decided about the form of perception of his programme and developed a precise concept of an architectural Octagon, as the perfect shape of exposure. In 2011, with the death of the artist, the program has been completed. The program is composed of ca. 230 Details. The last number recorded by Roman Opałka is 5607249.

Works in collections: National Museum in Warsaw, Poznań, Kraków, Szczecin, Wrocław, Gdańsk, Museum of Art in Łódź, CSW Ujazdowski Castle, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo,Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf, Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Musee du Palais Albertina in Vienna, Art Museum in Tokyo, Musee d'Art Moderne in Geneve.