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Henryk Stażewski. Father of the Polish avant-garde
It is difficult to imagine the history of 20th century Polish art without Henryk Stażewski. He began with watercolor studies of figures and an insanely picturesque saloon, but soon decided to “forget everything” and open a new, avant-garde chapter of his work. During the Second Republic, by his own admission, he did not sell a single painting, which by no means discouraged him from experimenting with abstraction. During the communist era, he was one of the most colorful artistic personalities in Warsaw, his art gained international recognition, and his “reliefs” blurring the line between painting and sculpture were described as the greatest achievements of Polish abstract art. Full of swagger and wit, reflective and unpretentious, in addition to purist compositions in whites, he also created arrangements sparkling with saturated colors. His art was appreciated - and is still appreciated today - by the public of numerous exhibitions, collectors, and especially - by poets, who sang of the lyrical grace of the compositions he created.
Born in Warsaw on January 9, 1894, he was a painter. An alumnus of the Warsaw School of Fine Arts, one of the forerunners of the Polish artistic avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s, a representative of Constructivism and co-creator of the geometric abstraction trend, creator of theater sets, interior and furniture designer, author of the famous “reliefs.” A classic of modern art. He died on June 10, 1988.
Paweł Bień
Poet, art historian, publicist.
Assistant professor at the National Museum in Warsaw, author of the poetry book “Light Sensitivity” (Lodz 2021) and more than a hundred popular science articles on painting published in several titles, curator of exhibitions, critic.
He has given lectures at the invitation of, among others, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, the National Museum in Warsaw, the National Institute of Frederic Chopin and other institutions.
He constantly cooperates as a lecturer with the ArtTransfer Foundation and Expeditions with Art.