Marek WŁODARSKI (Henryk Streng) (1903 - 1960), Billiards (1956)
oil, canvas
69 x 63 cm
Signed p. d.: M. WŁODARSKI 56
On the back inscription: Marek Włodarski / 1956 / "Billiard"
Marek Wlodarski (Henryk Streng) studied from 1920 to 1924 at the Free Academy of Fine Arts, and later at the State Industrial School in Lviv under the direction of, among others, Kazimierz Sichulski. While studying at this school, he met colleagues from the future "artes" group: Otto Hahn, Jerzy Janisch, Alexander Riemer, Roman Sielski and others. In 1924 he went to Vienna and Paris, where he took up studies at the Académie Moderne under Fernand Léger. During his several-year stay in Paris, he established contacts with the Surrealist community and met André Breton and André Masson. After returning to Poland, in 1930 he became associated with the Association of Artists "artes", taking part in the group's exhibitions in Lviv, Warsaw, Krakow and other centers. He worked socially and was repeatedly elected to the board of the Lviv Association of Artists. From around 1933, the artist became associated with leftist circles and organizations, participating in demonstrations and collaborating with radical magazines. Leftist beliefs also influenced the subject matter of his works, often drawn from the lives of workers. Under Soviet occupation, he became associated with the newly formed Union of Soviet Artists of Ukraine, of which he was vice-president. He spent the years of the German occupation hiding in Lviv. During this time he adopted the name Marek Wlodarski. In 1944 he left for Warsaw. Imprisoned at the beginning of the Uprising, he was taken to Stutthof concentration camp, where he stayed until the end of the war. After the war, he settled in Warsaw. He was active in ZPAP and had several solo exhibitions, including at the Club of Young Artists and Scientists (1947). From 1947 he was a teacher at the State Higher School of Visual Arts, which was merged with the Academy of Fine Arts in 1950. He continued teaching until the end of his life. Although he received an honorable mention at the First National Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1950, from 1951 to 1954 he avoided participating in exhibitions, not wanting to bend to the requirements of the doctrine of socialist realism. In 1954, together with Tadeusz Blazejowski, he made decorations for the interiors of PDT in Wola in the glass painting technique. In 1956 he participated in the XXVIII Venice Biennale. Since then, the influence of informel abstraction became apparent in his painting. Since 1958, he was head of the painting department at the Academy of Fine Arts' Faculty of Interior Design.
