Dimensions: 67.5 x 67 cm
signed and described on the reverse: 'Z. Artymowska | Acrylic'
Origin:
private collection, Warsaw
Exhibited
"Poliforms and Desert. Painting of Zofia Artymowska", Wladyslaw Hasior Gallery, Zakopane, October - November 2009.
Biography
Studied in 1945-50 at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, receiving her diploma in the atelier of E. Eibisch. In 1950-51 she was an assistant at her alma mater, and in 1952-55 at the Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. At the same time, in 1953-56, together with her husband Roman, she worked on the polychromy of the rebuilt townhouses of the Old and New Towns, for which she received the Second Degree State Award (team) in 1953. Beginning in 1957, she made non-figurative compositions in ceramic mosaics and parallel monotypes. During several extended stays in Iraq, she taught at art colleges in Baghdad (1959-60, 1964-68, 1977-79). Since 1971, she also taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw. In 1970 she inaugurated her main painting series, "Poliforms." Artymowska's paintings are studies of painterly space. In them, the artist "explored" the division of the composition, the possibility of juxtaposing different forms. Through these experiments Artymowska arrived at Poliforms. The starting point for her was the cylinder form - as a unit or part of a machine. Polyforms were created with mathematical precision, calculating the place of each element. They were created in the form of paintings (oils, acrylics) and also in drawings, prints, collages. An interesting effect was produced by combining polyform drawings or serigraphs with photographs - importantly, often photographs illustrating the landscape, architecture of the Middle East. The actual views were blended into an imaginary mathematical space constructed by the artist. Since the 1980s she has lived with her husband in Lowicz, in a palace she restored with her own efforts.
