30 x 38 cm (print)
36.8 x 47.8 cm (all in light passe-partout)
signed in ink p.d.: H BERLEWI 57
♣ to the price auctioned, in addition to other costs, a fee will be added, resulting from the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Act of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite)
Henryk Berlewi (Warsaw, October 30, 1894 - Paris, August 2, 1967) attended the Warsaw School of Fine Arts (1906-09) as a junior high school student. He then studied at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp (1909-10), the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, before returning to Warsaw in 1913 to study at the Drawing School under Jan Kauzik (1913-15). In 1915-18 he created and exhibited, including at the Zachęta Gallery, portraits and figural compositions. From 1918 dates Berlewi's rapprochement with the circles of Warsaw Futurists and Formists. Deformation and elements of expressionism appear in his works. Influenced by El Lissitzki, who visited Warsaw in 1921, he became interested in the idea of renewing Jewish art, and took up thematic themes related to Jewish culture and daily life. In 1922-23 Berlewi stayed in Berlin, where, under the influence of avant-garde trends and contacts with prominent artists, he radically changed his art and developed the theory of mechanofaktura, which he published in print in 1924 in Warsaw and Berlin (in "Der Sturm"). The artist combined the publication with solo exhibitions in both cities. The Warsaw exhibition took place in the car showroom of Daimler-Benz, which harmonized with the idea of mechanofaktura, which assumed the maximum approximation of art and technology, which was to be achieved by, among other things, building an image from repetitive geometric elements. In 1924-26 Berlewi co-founded the "Blok" group with other Polish artists. In 1926 he returned to object art, but did not break with the Constructivist movement. In 1928 he went to Paris, where he gained a reputation as a portraitist. During World War II, he went into hiding in the south of France, and in 1943-44 collaborated with the resistance movement in Nice. After the war, he continued figurative painting until 1957, when, influenced by new trends in art, as well as a retrospective exhibition of Constructivism at the Denise Renée gallery in which he participated, he returned to abstraction. He referred to the theory and practice of mechanofacture, treating it as a starting point for creating his own version of op-art.