100.00 x 70.00 cm - acrylic, paper , signed p.d.: J.Tchórzewski 82
signed on the reverse in pink thin pencil g.: [mark of the upward arrow] HAUT, d.: J.Tchórzewski 82 | Hommage a Karol Szymanowski - Peinture VIII [title crossed out] | acrilique | [in black thin pencil:] "POSTAĆ CHWYCA GWIASTRA". 28, l.g. and l.d.: stamps permitting export abroad.
Reproduced image:
- Suffering Form: Jerzy Tchórzewski Painting (Catalogue raisonné online version) https://jerzytchorzewski.com/pl/katalog/107881-jerzy-tchorzewski-postac-chwytajaca-gwiazde.
From caverns filled with fantastic stalagmites and stalactites, from landscapes that are themselves places of worship, emerge figures turning to the mysteries of the cosmos, reaching for the stars. Permeated by the omnipresent sacrum, they gradually lose their original monumentalism and biological power. Ascetic silhouettes of men and women circulate in spaces that reveal further and further horizons as the years go by. Glowing red worlds appear here alternately with areas resolved in cold greens or blues: mountain landscapes invaded by dozens of rock faults appear next to images of the sky, unfathomable in their immensity. The expressive power of these images lies in the color, in its saturation, in the depth of tones, in the richness of nuances. It also lies in the way the space is resolved, which for the second time in Tchórzewski's work becomes multi-planned, distant, symbolic. What pervades it, however, is fundamentally different from the fantastic landscapes of his first years. Pagan fairy lands, gardens of delights have now been replaced by areas of sensation of deeper, metaphysical provenance. They have been replaced by, as Tchórzewski declares, "the multi-space of contemporary life" (Mariusz Hermansdorfer, Jerzy Tchórzewski independent artist, https://jerzytchorzewski.com/pl/eseje/2804-jerzy-tchorzewski-artysta-niezalezny).
Jerzy Tchórzewski fought in the Home Army during the war. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow from 1946 to 1951, and during his studies became associated with the circle of the Cracow Group. He made his debut at the First Exhibition of Modern Art in Cracow in 1948, and in 1955 participated in an exhibition at the Warsaw Arsenal, where he won an award. By that time he was already living in Warsaw, where in 1954 he began teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts (he retired in 1998). From his early figurative period (1948-1955), when he placed figures and fantastic creatures in imaginary landscapes, he was already characterized by interests and a type of imagination close to surrealism. In the second half of the 1950s, he began to paint abstract images evocative of cosmic cataclysms and eruptions of matter, illuminated by jagged lines of lightning that contrast with the dark background. Sometimes human and animal shapes appeared in his compositions. The convergence of Tchórzewski's surreal visions with the parallel tendencies of informel painting led him to associate himself with the international art movement Phases in 1959. In later years, the artist complicated the texture of his paintings, using, among other things, the drying properties of a thick layer of paint and, in the case of gouaches, the effects of crumpled paper. From the late 1970s onward, he eagerly took up religious subjects. The apogee of this trend came in the 1980s, when the artist became associated with the independent art movement, often exhibiting in churches and at private shows. In 1986 he received the independent Jan Cybis Award.
