Zofia Artymowska (1923-2000), SUBJECT OF SPACE III, 1969

acrylic/canvas, 100 x 100 cm
signed and dated on the back: Division of Space III | Zofia Artymowska | acrylic

EXHIBITED:
- Zofia Artymowska, Center for Art Propaganda in Łódź, Łódź 1970
- Zofia Artymowska: Painting, Zachęta Gallery, Warsaw 1971
- Zofia Artymowska: Painting, Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, Wrocław 1972
- Zofia Artymowska - polymorphic portrait, Antiqua et Moderna Gallery, September-October 2023, Warsaw 2023

LITERATURE:
- Zofia Artymowska, Center for Art Propaganda in Łódź, Łódź 1970, [pos. cat. no. 4]
- Zofia Artymowska: Painting, Zachęta Gallery, Warsaw 1971 [cat. no. 18; black and white repr.]
- Zofia Artymowska: Painting, Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, Wrocław 1972 [cat. no. no. 10]
- Zofia Artymowska - polymorphic portrait, Antiqua et Moderna Gallery, September-October 2023 [exhibition cat.], Warsaw 2023, repr. p. nlb.


She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow in 1950, receiving her diploma in the studio of Professor Eugeniusz Eibisch. In 1953-1956, she co-created polychrome facades of tenement houses in the Old and New Towns in Warsaw. In 1959, at her first solo exhibition at the Krzywe Koło Gallery, Zofia Artymowska presented monotypes and intimate mosaic formats with abstract compositions. In the same year she traveled to Baghdad, where she taught. In the Middle East she stayed and taught at art colleges in 1959-1960, 1963-1968, 1977-1979.

In the early 1960s she painted paintings maintained in informel aesthetics, with rich texture, structurally referring to her earlier graphic and mosaic works. Encountering the desert landscape and Middle Eastern architecture, Artymowska began to simplify and geometrize her compositions. Space and rhythm became the most important formal problems for her. At that time she created series of paintings - "Interdependent Forms" (1967-1969), "Study of Space" (1969), "Rhythm" (1969), "Waving" (1969) and "Division of Space" (1969), to which the offered painting belongs.

Around 1970 Artymowska reduced the structure of her paintings, limiting herself to multiplying the module in the form of a cylinder. This is how the concept of her famous "Poliforms" was created. Over time, two tendencies became apparent in the paintings - the "mechanical" one (compositions depicting "industrial" space, where cylindrical shapes resemble machine parts) and the other, suggesting interiors or landscapes with a distant horizon.

The artist's concern with space in art and art in space (she arranged her own exhibitions) led her to experiment with multi-segment paintings and multi-directional compositions, which expanded the range of possibilities for their display.