Stefan GIEROWSKI (b. 1925), Untitled, 1978

Watercolor, cardboard; 73 x 51 cm;
Signed and dated p. d.: S. Gierowski 78 (obliterated);
On the reverse, signed and dated p. d.: S. Gierowski 78.

Great figure of Polish contemporary painting. One of the most outstanding creators of abstract painting. Author of countless exhibitions, including those that have gone down in the history of painting in Poland. At first a figurative painter (the "Dovecotes" series), with time he became exclusively an abstractionist. Since 1957, he has been painting and numbering more paintings that came close to geometric abstraction, but Stefan Gierowski never became an orthodox geometrist. This is because he has always been faithful first and foremost to the elementary issues of painting: the pigment that expresses itself in color, the matter of paint and the painterly gesture that shapes the image. It was in these values that he found the field for his painterly expression. In their area he conducted his authorial discourse on what painting is. Although an abstractionist, he was close to Jan Cybis, with whom he shared not only a painterly friendship, but also an understanding of the uniqueness of the creative process of painting pictures. He was born in Częstochowa in 1925. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, graduating in the studio of Karol Frycz. He also studied art history at Jagiellonian University. From 1962 to 1996 he worked at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Full Professor. In 1981 he was elected rector of the Academy of Fine Arts, but by the decision of the martial law authorities did not begin his term. For many years dean of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Winner of the Jan Cybis Award.