Teresa TYSZKIEWICZ (1906-1992), Gesture II, 1990

oil, canvas; 80.5 x 100 cm;
Signed and dated p. d.: T90;
Inscribed on back: TERESA TYSZKIEWICZ / GEST II 1990 and a sticker from Slawek Boss Gallery.
Image exhibited: Starmach Gallery, Cracow 1992; Slawek Boss Gallery, Warsaw 1992.

Teresa Tyszkiewicz was a versatile artist, she was involved in textiles, painting but her interests were much broader (including: philosophy, mathematics, church theory). In addition, the painter was an outstanding educator. Like Stefan Wegner, she had a significant influence on the shape and program of the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz, where she worked from 1945 to 1978, leading the studio of fabric printing. Among other things, this unusual juxtaposition (of print and fabric) testified to her broad horizons as well as her particular openness to a diversity of issues and interests. Like Wegner, she belonged to the "Fifth Circle" art group in Lodz. Due to World War II, the artist did not receive her diploma from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts until 1946 under the tutelage of, among others, her former colleague Felicjan Szczęsny Kowarski. She was among the first thirteen post-war graduates of the academy, along with Wojciech Fangor, among others. She had extensive artistic contacts with, for example, Tadeusz Kantor and Maria Jarema. She presented her works at three Exhibitions of Modern Art (Cracow - 1949, Warsaw - 1957, 1959).
The offered canvas is one of the extremely rare compositions on the auction market. The artist destroyed her pre-war legacy as well as works from the early 1950s. In the 1950s. Teresa Tyszkiewicz developed her own style in painting called, not once, gesture painting, more than once compared to textiles due to the linearity of the composition juxtaposed with the threads tumbling across the bright white canvas. Often, too, the evocative, economical artistic expression of her works brought to mind writing - calligraphy. Due to the expressiveness of the forms obtained by means of intersecting lines, her work can be described as part of the Tascist trend in art clearly associated with the informel used by Tadeusz Kantor. In the above-mentioned themes and comparisons, one can clearly see the multiplicity of artistic thoughts occupying Teresa Tyszkiewicz, with simultaneous consistency focusing on the gesture of the artist.
The presented painting dates from 1990 when Teresa Tyszkiewicz, returned to the assumptions developed in the 1950s and 1960s, creating a series of paintings "Gesture" in 1989-1992.
(Source: culture.pl, szum.pl, lodz.wyborcza.pl, www.ledochowski.eu/rodzina/ttyszkiewiczpl)