The exhibition in Olomouc consists of oil paintings as well as works on paper. The oil paintings selected from the artist's vast legacy are from the second half of the 1950s, when the artist’s talent finally took shape and he found his style in the then-fashionable informalism, and from the 1960s – his most successful period, and the apogee of his creative abilities. At the exhibition, paintings such as Stains on Sky and the Earth (Plamy na Niebie i Ziemi) from his 1956–58 series, Dawn (Jutrzenka, 1957), and Giving the Shape (Nadawanie Ksztaltu, 1957) will be shown. These are examples of mature and expressive painting, deeply rooted in surrealism – taschist in form, yet very personal in mood and message. They were shown for the first time at Lenica’s first individual exhibition in Zacheta in Warsaw in 1958 that made him an icon of taschist painting in Poland and paved the way for his international career. His painting Paints in Motion (Farby w Ruchu, 1949) is considered to be the first Polish tachist painting.
His works on paper – drawing, aquarels, guaches, temperas, decals, and collages – perfectly show Lenica’s way to his own style; from the war, through the decreed socialist realism, to the moment of the final triumph of modernity in the 60s. Metaphorical and abstract works, some of which which will be shown publicly for the first time, were chosen for the exhibition.
It will also recall the moment in Lenica’s art that is linked to his communist beliefs. He created paintings such as Cleaning Lady (Sprzataczka) and Worker with a Wheelbarrow (Robotnik z Taczka) in accordance with the doctrine of socialist realism, although his attempts at creating such paintings didn’t stop his experiments with abstract compositions. The series created then, such as Broader Apetites (Szersze Apetyty, 1952), Sources (Zrodla, 1952 – 57), Streaks and Stains (Smugi i Plamy, 1953 – 57) or Phantoms (Widma, 1953 – 57), were never published, and are just now being unveiled to an audience. They show that Lenica had never abandoned the avant-garde, that his socialist realism paintings merely fulfilled his ideological duty, as avant-garde artworks outnumber the socialist realism ones.
"Alfred Lenica / Colour – Gesture – Subconsciousness"
Olomouc Museum of Art, Olomouc, Czech Republic
11th June – 20th September 2015
Vernissage: 11th June 2015, 6.30 pm
Curator: Beata Gawronska-Orasmus
Source: organizer’s materials, edited by AS, translated by Barbara Bedka