Kazimierz Mikulski, BEFORE EVENING, 1960s.

71,0 x 50,0 cm - oil, board signed on the reverse on the board p.g. in marker: K. Mikulski

l.g.: Before evening, next to: for Dr. Lothar Bolz [inscription faintly visible].

p.d. sticker (mpis) Mikulski, Kazimierz | (Polen) | Es Wird Abend; on the reinforcement of the board a metal plate engraved with the artist's name, date of birth and title (in German)



This is what Krystyna Czerni wrote about the unique atmosphere of Kazimierz Mikulski's painting: (...) his long-standing collaboration with "Groteska" helped him to develop a characteristic, homogeneous painting formula: a fairy-tale-sleepy atmosphere of staged interiors and gardens, filled with eroticism and an atmosphere of wonderment, delight in nature and at the same time a fondness for the fairground aesthetics of the circus and funfair. This painting is incredibly theatrical, like a frozen frame from a cartoon film, like a set design for an outdoor performance - with props, decoration, stage set up. We recognize everything: blue hills, trees, beautiful naked girls, birds hidden in the thick grass, magical objects. And although we know that this reality is artificial, nature-unnatural, and everything is fake - it happens like in the theater: the magic works, we forget about the real world and.... we believe the art.

Krystyna Czerni, Art Reserve, In the footsteps of Polish artists of the 20th century, Krakow, 2000, p. 74.



♣ to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, will be added a fee resulting from the right of the creator and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Act of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite)





Kazimierz Mikulski (Krakow 1918 - Krakow 1998) began his studies in painting before World War II at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, and continued them from 1939 to 1940 under Prof. Fryderyk Pautsch at the Kunstgewerbeschule, established during the occupation in place of the Academy. After the war, he completed two years of acting studies at the Drama Studio at the Old Theater in Cracow and worked as an actor until 1948. At the same time, in 1945, he graduated from the Youth Film Workshop. From 1948 to 1979 he was the art director and set designer of the Groteska Theater in Cracow, for which he designed puppets, costumes, decorations, etc. At the same time, all the time he was engaged in painting and activity in the circle of Tadeusz Kantor, at first as a member of the Young Visual Artists Group, and from 1957 in the Cracow Group, of which he was co-founder and president in 1965-1967. He was also a member of the Cricot 2 theater group, and played in the productions Water Hen, Nadobnisie i koczkodany, Dead Class and in his own play Circus. In his paintings from the second half of the 1940s, the artist depicted light, linear forms floating in empty spaces. It was a painting that was both surrealistic and abstract. But already ca. 1950 he began to paint in his characteristic way - rejecting abstraction, he presented countless variants and arrangements of several favorite motifs (head or figure of a woman-doll, cats, butterflies).