Nitrolite. Dimensions: 47.5 x 55 cm
Hand signature.
Stanislaw Walach (1919-1983). The artist began his drawing studies quite early, for in 1931-32 he attended classes with Alfred Terlecki at the private School of Fine Arts in Cracow, and for the next three years he studied at the State School of Decorative Arts and Artistic Industry. He then attended evening courses at the Craftsmen's Vocational School, working in parallel in painting companies. In 1938 Stanislaw Walach began his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, and from 1941-1943 he continued his studies at the Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule in Cracow. After the war, from 1945, he resumed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. He defended his diploma in 1947 in the studio of Jerzy Fedkowicz.
Beginning in 1948, until 1951, he painted polychromes in churches in Malopolska and Podkarpacie. In the following years, he also engaged in monumental painting, and made, among other things, decorations in the Esterka House in Radom (1956).
In 1953 the artist became associated with the Kielce community, he was active in the "W-57" group. During this period he actively participated in artistic life, organized exhibitions, and also exhibited a lot himself.
In 1958 Stanislaw Walach received a Diploma of Honor from the Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Krakow, in 1959 he returned permanently to Krakow, where he continued his active artistic activity.
The artist practiced easel and monumental painting, and was also involved in drawing and printmaking. In the early period of his career, he painted in the realist trend, taking up subjects canonical in the history of art: landscapes, still lifes, portraits and other figural compositions. After the war, the artist pursued the Socialist Realist trend for a while, but eventually developed his individual, synthesizing style, close to Cubism and geometric abstraction, working with color and the texture of the paint laid down. In the 1960s, the artist began to focus even more on the textural nature of his works, which led the painter to use various materials in his compositions (the so-called "waste of reality"), which brings to mind the work of Władysław Hasior.
In the 1960s Stanislaw Walach became interested in cosmonautics and the imaginary world, and from the 1970s he increasingly included various astronautical visions and unidentified flying objects in his paintings. Driven by a particular passion, he came into contact with the Society for the Study of Extraterrestrial Civilizations. He also became a correspondent member of the Brazilian Society for the Study of Flying Objects.
Stanislaw Walach has shown his works at many collective and individual exhibitions in the country and around the world, exhibiting in Krakow, Kielce, Oslo, Berlin, Moscow and Piennes, among others. The artist has been repeatedly awarded for his work, receiving, for example, the Stanislaw Wyspianski Medal at the Annual Salon of Cracow Painting (1977).
Stanislaw Wallach's art is also appreciated abroad, where the artist is known mainly as a painter of cosmological paintings. He was particularly famous for his solo exhibition in the United States, which took place in 1977 in Chicago.