Rafał Malczewski, VIEW ON GUBAŁÓWKA, 1923-1929

38.9 x 72.0 cm - watercolor, paper glued on cardboard

signed l.d.: Rafał Malczewski



Rafal Malczewski, son of the famous symbolist Jacek Malczewski, arrived in Zakopane in 1915, making it his home for more than two decades, until 1939. The place he referred to as "the navel of the world" was vividly described in his later memoirs, capturing the unique, almost mythical atmosphere of the Tatra resort during the interwar period. Together with his wife Bronislawa and son Krzysztof, they initially lived in the Red Manor at 27 Kasprusie Street, almost opposite the Zakopane Skiers Branch, of which Rafal was an active member and competitor. Then, in 1923, the artist moved with his family to Villa "Marysin" at 5 Zamoyskiego St. The paintings created during his stay in this villa are among the artist's peak achievements. It was then that his individual, modernist style was formed, combining avant-garde inspirations with Tatra landscapes. The featured painting shows a view from the garden of the Villa "Marysin" towards Gubałówka.

Thus, we can date the view of Gubałówka to the period 1923-1929 - years belonging to the most interesting period of Rafał Malczewski's work. The artist was already entering adulthood in free Poland, which had an impact on the subject matter of his works. Artists at the time were fascinated by the pleasures of everyday life. Art was dominated by trends that put the main emphasis on the form rather than the content of the work. In line with the trends of the era, Malczewski focused on synthesizing and geometrizing forms. This is particularly evident in the landscapes, which have an almost cubist structure. Zakopane of the 1920s was a unique intellectual and artistic center, free from the conservatism of big cities. The local bohemia created its own innovative art, combining expressionism, futurism and cubism with the local folklore of the Podhale region.

Malczewski was also fascinated by the modern landscape - in addition to the Tatra Mountains, he enjoyed painting cityscapes, railroad stations and industrial Silesia. Along with Malczewski in Zakopane at the time were such prominent artists as Zofia and Karol Stryjeński, Witkacy, Leon Chwistek and Karol Szymanowski.

Landscapes with highland architecture were painted by the artist from the early 1920s. The painting on display is an excellent example, characteristic of this period, of Malczewski's work, about which he wrote as follows: The basis for the creation of the painting is a certain state of emotional tension, which connects me with some fragment of the visible world, perceived at once. This moment gives the impulse to create a composition in which this state will fit all, revealed by painterly means. (...) For me, the composition on a plane is a series of selections and eliminations of superfluous, in my opinion, objects, not only because of the purely painterly and craftsman's ideas about the image, but also because of the evocation of the same tension in the viewer, which was created and continues in me. (...) On the other hand, however, some color arrangement for me, at this moment the only one that matters, must be a stimulus transferred from reality, acting in tandem with the aforementioned condition. Otherwise, everything passes away and obliterates, deprived of the need to make a painterly statement. (...) Color is at a given moment a delight, a discovery (for me), the joy of a purely sensual genre, a form fished out meticulously from the surrounding world, an expression of emotional tension, something painfully dear, with which it is difficult to part, and one longs to share with someone. (R. Malczewski, My Paintings, "Plastika", no. 1, 1930, pp. 3-4)

Rafał Malczewski (Krakow 1892 - Montreal 1965) studied agronomy, philosophy and architecture in Vienna; he also attended the Academy of Fine Arts there, but owed his artistic education primarily to his father, Jacek Malczewski. From 1917 to 1939 he lived permanently in Zakopane; he was a passionate mountaineer. In 1930 he left for a six-month stay in France. In December 1939 he broke through Slovakia and Hungary to France, from where he then left for Brazil and later the United States. In 1942 he arrived in Montreal, where he remained permanently. Beginning in 1919 he exhibited extensively; from 1934 also as a member of the "Rhythm" grouping. He painted mainly landscapes - from the Tatra Mountains, Podhale, views from small towns and factory Silesia, later also from Brazil and Canada. In his paintings - consciously primitive, often maintained in a poetic and fairy-tale mood - he is close to the art of naive realism. Malczewski was also a literary man, author of articles on art, columns, essays and memoirs of the Tatra and Zakopane Mountains, including "Narcotic of the Mountains," "The Mountains Call" and "Navel of the World," a book already written in Canada.