The object is imported from outside the EU under temporary clearance. Import VAT in the amount of 8% of the amount bid, will be added to the sale price of the object.
oil, canvas; 61 x 61 cm;
signed, dated and described on the back: FANGOR / M 90 / 1967;
auction and framing stickers on the back of the binding
Provenance:
- private collection, Maryland, USA (gift from the artist)
- private collection
- Bonhams, London, 2018
- private collection, Europe
Bibliography:
- Szydłowski S., Wojciech Fangor. 3 Dimensions. A Retrospective. 3 Dimensions a Retrospective, Orońsko Polish Sculpture Center, Orońsko 2015
- Catalogue Raisonné, ed. by Katarzyna Jankowska-Cieślik
When thinking about the work of Wojciech Fangor, its first symbol is often the painterly representation of a circle with blurry, "melting" edges. The illusion of undulations occurring as a result of the smooth penetration of color tones, as well as the contrasting of colors, differences in color intensity or the size of forms, are characteristic of the term "positive illusory space" created by the painter, but also the broader concept of op-art, of which Wojciech Fangor is one of the precursors. Optical illusion was associated with the use of the so-called sfumato technique, which involves blurring the contour and blurring any detail. As a result, an impression of a kind of extraction of the image from the plane of the canvas was created. This way of treating the work introduces a certain optical disorientation for the viewer: the fluidity of the resulting form does not give a clear point of reference, and thus causes a disturbance of perception and strongly individual cognitive impressions.
The artist's approach to space as an artistic category was visionary, going beyond the framework of the painting, its subject or the technique used, towards drawing attention to the relationship between art objects. The space between them became a stimulus for artistic exploration. The dimension of time and emphasizing the role of the observer not only in interpretation, but also in a kind of intervention in the space of the art object also became important in the reception of the artwork. Experimental projects involving space, color and the viewer set the artist on an innovative path in contemporary conceptual art. Fangor's observation of the interrelationship between the categories of space and time in a work of painting, was linked to the experience of architectural projects in which he participated. In the early 1950s, he began working with famous architects: Oskar Hansen, Zbigniew Ichnatowicz, Jerzy Soltan and Stanislaw Zamecznik, who particularly interested the painter in the subject of space as artistic material.
The offered work of art, due to the date of its creation, the technique used and the compositional form, belongs to the canon of the artist's painting. As the initial in the work's title suggests, it was created in the American city of Madison, where the painter settled and taught art at Fairleigh Dickinson University for seventeen years. Although the geometric figure of the circle was readily used by Fangor, it was not a uniformly reproduced scheme. When comparing these compositions by the artist, what draws attention is the variety of colors or their monochromaticity, the differences in the background or the filling or absence of the center of the figure. The painting "M90" is characterized by the representation of the central part of the figure in an intense, uniform color and a subdued, contrasting background. The composition excellently shows the penetration of color tones and the effect of a "moving" illusory plane.
The 1960s, from which the described work comes, were a time of significant exhibitions of the artist around the world. Examples of individual exhibitions were held at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Washington (1962), Galerie Lambert in Paris (1963) or the Chalette Gallery in New York (which also sold the painter's objects). Fangor's works could be seen in group exhibitions at, among others, New York's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1964), the exhibition "The Respansive Eye" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1965), and, in the year of the painting's creation, at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
