The artist created countless watercolours, monotypes, gouaches, and drawings during the German occupation of Poland, and this exhibition marks the first time when many of those works are on public display. Furthermore, the artist also created many unique and unpublished abstract compositions during his socialist realist phase, which also mark their first ever museum appearance.
The National Museum in Wrocław has just opened an exhibition which displays the works of one of the most outstanding Polish artists of the avant-garde era. The works shown there were largely salvaged from the artist’s former workshop and have been recently acquired by a private collector.
Alfred Lenica considered himself to be a surrealist painter, although his contemporaries often placed him in the abstract camp. In the words of Beata Gawrońska-Oramus, the editor of the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition:
The essence of his painting lies beyond the purely visual, and his choice of titles is crucial to fully understanding his works. The paintings are a reflection of emotional states, states that occupy the space formed between the painting and the viewer
Alfred Lenica’s paintings have not been exhibited in public since 2002. Back then, a ‘Festival of the Lenicas’ was organised in Poznań and showcased works by Alfred Lenica as well as his childdren, Jan and Danuta.
“The exhibition in Wrocław contains around 200 works, presented in a chronological order, and also divided by the medium used, be it paper or canvas”
Barbara Ilkosz, the curator of the exhibition, conversation with Culture.pl
The exhibition in Wrocław will also introduce the public to further artistic themes whichLenica experimented with. It displays:
“(…) his earlier experiments with tachisme, his informalist inspirations, his collages, and, above all, his abstract and metaphorical paintings decisively inspired by surrealism. It reveals many works which have not been shown to the public before, it brings us closer to the ‘mysteries’ of the artist’s workshop. It also introduces us to his many experiments with techniques such as collage, decalcomania, monotyping, dripping paint, and his own ways of working with glue”
Dr hab. Piotr Oszczanowski, curator of the National Museum in Wrocław
The exhibition will focus especially on the large composite oil paintings which Lenica painted from the late 1950s until the early 1970s. Lenica’s personal interprations of informalism very prominently influenced those works, which include “Ślady religii”(1956) (Signs of Religion), “Złudzenie rzeczywistości” (1957) (Illusions of reality), “Z dna wojny” (1962) (From the bottom of war) and “Debilne przyspieszanie sukcesu” (1971) (The idiotic acceleration of success).