Signed on the back l.g.: Jerzy Nowosielski | 1983
p.g. unread mark
Authenticity of the painting consulted with Andrzej Szczepaniak - art historian, curator of exhibitions, executive director of Starmach Gallery, editor, among others, of the albums Henryk Stażewski (2018), Jerzy Nowosielski (2019) published by Skira.
Image exhibited:
- Desa, Pavilion 2 Gallery, Krakow IV - V 1985 (solo exhibition);
- District Museum, Radom 29 VI - 15 IX 1990 (individual exhibition);
- Lviv Picture Gallery, Lviv 28 IX - X 1990 (individual exhibition);
- Archaeological Museum, Arche Gallery, Gdansk 11 I - II 1991 (individual exhibition);
- Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok V - VI 1991 (individual exhibition);
- Piano Nobile Gallery, Cracow X 1991.
In Jerzy Nowosielski's art - strongly marked by the experience of icon painting - the boundary between the spheres of the sacred and the profane was blurred. This idea gained its fullest form in numerous representations of the female body. Diverse in composition and color, the series of nudes - including indoors, on the beach, with a mirror, in a landscape, so-called "blacks" - were intended to "restore spiritual meaning to corporeality. Women's silhouettes, plotted with a heavy, "Novoselian" line, carried a powerful charge of eroticism, without which, according to the artist, the image of the naked body becomes pointless. In an interview with Zbigniew Podgorc, the artist emphasized:
I treat nudes essentially the same way an icon treats a face. Icon, after all, from the human body has developed only the scheme of hands and face. In contrast, I would like to do with the female body what the icon did with the face. [...] I would like there to be eroticism, because the moment I over-sterilize the nude, it misses the point. More - I would like to include this eroticism precisely in my paintings. I would like it to be carnal, I would like it to be a subtle body with all the properties of a real body. The whole point is to bring as many elements of biological reality as possible to a higher floor of consciousness. But this is very difficult.(Around the Icon. Conversations with Jerzy Nowosielski, J. Nowosielski, Z. Podgórzec, PAX Publishing Institute, Warsaw 1985, pp. 76-77)
In the nude canon, defined on its own terms, the figures of the models - captured repeatedly in favorite, repeated poses - are subordinated to a peculiar order of composition. An excellent illustration of this artistic procedure is the painting presented in the catalog, which is a rare example of a shot of a portrait subject against the background of a sunrise over the sea. The space of the background, unusually schematically treated, allows full attention to be focused on the sensual nakedness of the anonymous woman - "something most sacred and most cursed."
Jerzy Nowosielski (Krakow 1923 - Krakow 2011) began his studies at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Krakow in 1940. In 1942 he stayed for less than a year in the St. John the Baptist Lavra near Lviv. There he studied the art of painting and the history of icons. After returning to Cracow in 1943, he re-established contacts with the circle of the future Cracow Group. After the war, he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow under Prof. Eugeniusz Eibisch (1945-1947). At the First Exhibition of Modern Art in Cracow in 1948/49, he showed paintings maintained in the trend of geometric abstraction. During the years of Socialist Realism, he did not exhibit, dealing at the time with stage design and painting churches and orthodox churches. In 1955 in Lodz he presented his first solo exhibition, in 1956 he participated in the XXVIII Venice Biennale. From 1957 to 1962 he was a teacher at the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Lodz, then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, where he taught at the Faculty of Painting until his retirement in 1993. In the second half of the 1950s he achieved a distinctive style of nudes, landscapes and figural scenes in interiors, which he owed to his fascination with icons and his experience with sacred painting. In 1976, he took up monumental works anew, producing mural paintings, Stations of the Cross and designs for stained glass windows in the Church of Divine Providence in Wesola near Warsaw (1976-1979). The artist was widely recognized as an authority on art rooted in spiritual values.
Jerzy Nowosielski died on February 21, 2011 in Krakow, Poland.
