Józef Chełmoński (1849 Boczki - 1914 Kuklówka Zarzeczna), At the fair, 1883.

Other titles: Fair in the Borderlands, Polish Fair [English], Market in the Borderlands

oil, canvas, 57 × 92.5 cm
Signed and dated l. d.: "Józef Chełmoński/ in Paris 1883".

Inscribed and reproduced:
- "CHRONICLE. CHRONICLE." Compiled by. Z. Michael Legutko. "PRO ARTE. Polish Art in the Western World. Polish Art in the World" [quarterly, Brooklyn, NY]. Summer 1987, p. 36, il. (as: Józef Chełmoński-Polish Fair, 23 × 36 in./59 × 91.5 cm)
- Auction catalog. [Organizer:] Z. Michael Legutko. Lipert Gallery, 147 Milton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11222. Brooklyn, NY, May 16, 1987, (as: Polish Fair, 1883).
- "CHRONICLE. CHRONICLE." Compiled by. Z. Michael Legutko. "PRO ARTE. Art in the Western World. Polish Art in the World" [quarterly magazine, Brooklyn, NY]. Autumn 1987, p. 79 (as: Polish Fair/Targ in the Borderlands).
- "Józef Chelmonski (1849-1914)." Volume I, Monographic Exhibition (compiled by Tadeusz Matuszczak. National Museum in Poznań. Poznań 1987, p. 36 footnote 68 (as: At the Fair 1883)
- Matuszczak Tadeusz "Józef Chełmoński". Cracow, Kluszczyński Publishing House, 2003, color ill. On p. 71 (as: At the fair, 1883, oil on canvas, 59 × 91.5, private property).
- "Works of Art Auction" auction catalog. AGRA-ART, Warsaw, Hotel Bristol, March 22, 2009, item 47, two color ill. 1:- FAIR IN THE BORDERLANDS, 1883
- "ArtBusiness" 2009 no. 5 ("Collector" no. 3- as Chełmoński Józef/1846-19141 "Jarmark ma kresach", 1883
- Tadeusz Matuszczak, Józef Chełmoński, "Na jarmarku", [First public showing of the painting since it was painted in 1883], Radziejowice 2009.
Provenance:
- Collection of Dr. Eugene L.Slotkowski (1920 -2007), Chicago Dr. Eugen was a well-known pediatrician and collector of Polish descent. The son of Joseph B. Slotkowski, founder of the Slotkowski Sausage Company in Chicago. Author of many publications in the field of pediatrics. As part of the activities of The Kosciuszko Foundation American Center for Polish Culture in New York, he established the 'Publication Found Achievements Award'. His pride in his Polish ancestry influenced his love of Polish culture, art and history. Since the 1950s, he collected Polish paintings with great passion. His collections included paintings by Henryk Siemiradzki ("Dance Among the Swords"), Wierusz-Kowalski, Juliusz Kossak or another painting by Chelmonski, "Czwórka" (the Drive) (oil, canvas, 45.7 × 76.5 cm. His collection was dispersed.
- In 1986, the painting was purchased for Zbigniew M. Legutko's Lipert Gallery in New York. Zbigniew Michal Legutko (1940-2006) - started his business in the late 1970s of the 20th century as THE LIPERT STUDIO (17 Norton Road, East Brunswick, New Jersey). For many years he organized auctions of Polish paintings, was editor and initiator of the founding of the magazine "PRO ARTE" (1987 - 1988) (Polish Art in the Western World. Polish Art in the World) "dedicated to Polish art outside the Country" and author of solo exhibitions and publications, among others: Stanisław Eleszkiewicz, Eugeniusz Wolski or Zygmunt Menkes. He co-founded collections - including those of Ewa and Wojciech Fibak, Tom Podel, Bożena and Jacek Blach, Barbara Piasecka-Johnson.
- Since 1987, the collection of Marion J. Dudek (a collector from Palm Desert, California). Purchase at auction on May 16, 1987, Lipert Gallery.
- 2009 private collection, Poland (purchase at Agra-Art auction March 22, 2009) Deposit in Radziejowice Palace.

"The painting At the Fair comes from the Parisian period and works of Chelmonski. It was painted in 1883, and the painter lived and worked in Paris, the center of art at the time, from late 1875 to mid-1887, almost twelve long years. After a skirmish with critics and fruitless attempts to "make a living out of art" in Warsaw, here in Paris the artist instantly achieves spectacular success, both artistically and financially. Parisian art dealers are interested in Chelmonski, among them the most powerful at the time, Adolphe Goupil. It was a favorable fate, after all, that the exotic borderland themes of his works hit the tastes of American collectors perfectly, whose expeditions to Paris for "art" had a not inconsiderable share in keeping the Parisian marchers in business. The demand for Chelmonski's works was to hold for five years (1876-1881). Thus, here in Paris, and began in the artist's life, a brief and only period of financial success and social clowning. There came a time, certainly, long anticipated by Chelmonski, but perhaps not quite in keeping with his nature as a "country man" rather than a "salon-goer." This period of prosperity for Chelmoński ends on July 15, 1881, with a drastic increase in the duty on paintings entering the States. Goupil stops buying Chelmonski paintings, while their prices fall headlong. Despite this, there are hardly any takers for their purchase. For Chelmonski, a time of drudgery and deprivation is coming. It is, in my opinion, also a time of progressive tranquility, a move away from dynamic, large-format canvases with swarming steeds and boiling crowds of borderland types. The era of distinctly smaller, calmer canvases had arrived. But fascinating with what could be called "small realism," delighting with a whole lot of details through which we taste this exotic borderland everyday life. It is from this period that the painting "At the Fair" comes from, which enchants with the atmosphere of a lazy, hot day at the end of summer and the fair's hustle and bustle. In a curtained borderland restaurant, fairgoers sit at set simple tables accented with white tablecloths. At a corner table the company is enjoying tea. A hot samovar, gleaming with the yellow of polished metal, reigns over the center of the tabletop. A white porcelain teapot, set on top of it, sends thick vapors of brewed tea into the air. Off to the side, a serving appendage in a bright red rubric, patiently awaiting an order from four bearded figures. The two closer to us look like pops in black rias. The one sitting opposite them gives the impression of merchants with the countenances of Russian peasants. The heads are captured and painted capitally, with expressive spots and flecks of paint. And the figure of the popa, with his head up and his beard sticking up like a panicle, dangerously tilted back together with his chair and belching smoke, rubs against ingenuity. At a neighboring table, a burly, balding shlagon with a handsome yellow mustache dines. He tucks a large white napkin under his chin. And rightly so, because it was feathered with stains densely. He was surrounded by a garland of three perorating Jewish traders. In contrast to the yellow of the first table's crockery, our nobleman's is dominated by red, with a vertical accent of the red of the slender decanter. Toward the feasting guests strides the powdered grandfather with an outstretched, brisk step. His left hand extended in a characteristic almsgiving gesture. Supporting himself on the grandfather's anklet, he leads a young, blind companion at his side. In front of the feasting people a black-painted carriage with a fractious design is just passing by In front of it in a halter with a duha, in a rich harness, a thoroughbred chestnut walks at a trot. At this moment, dramatically turning his head to the right, for having leaned out, the coachman noticed at the last moment, standing on the left of the unharnessed carriage and, saving himself from hooking his rear wheels, violently pulled the right reins.
The painting fascinates with its gallery of characters and masses of exotic objects, objects, props and details, which we savor as we wander through the fair. Stanislaw Witkiewicz, a warm friend of Chelmonski, wrote about his fairs as follows: "He wanted the painted fair to buzz with all the warbling and uproar of real life. The quack of biting horses, the turmoil of carriages, the chants of swollen, battered grandfathers, the crack of whips and the shout of the trader: "Los ni springen [Yiddish - let him not jump] (...), all this, covered with clouds of steam, splashed with mud, was to spring from the plane of the canvas, edged with a golden frame, and move as if alive" (...).
The painterly freedom with which Chełmoński, with sure and varied brushstrokes, builds up this peculiar architecture of the borderland fair is breathtaking and highly appreciated.
The painting is painted with the dynamics of brushstrokes and touches, characteristic of Chełmoński's Parisian period, operating with a varied color patch, oscillating between small fine spots and free wide overlaps; from greasy, textured overlaps to almost dry, smooth, crosshatched, sometimes with a clear brush stroke, and sometimes almost laser-like. In the case of Chelmonski, this above-described expressive display of painterly matter in no way detracts from, and in fact enhances, the correct realistic illusiveness of the depicted scene. For he is Chełmoński a master of drawing and observation, which is what makes his painting based on the drawing bones and precision of perception so fascinatingly faithful to nature and its shapes (....).
The appearance of the theme of borderland fairs in Chelmonski's work from 1882-1883, is closely connected with the artist's stay in the Borderlands in the late summer of 1881. As I was able to determine recently, based on an analysis of Chelmonski's letters to his wife, the painter leaves Paris for the country by train around August 10, stopping in Munich, where he visits his close friend Stanislaw Witkiewicz. From Munich he goes straight to Krakow, where he arrives on the evening of August 21 or the morning of the following day. On Sunday, August 28, he leaves Krakow for Lvov, where, in the Kulparkov "Institution for the Insane," he sees his warm friend Adam Chmielowski, who is being treated there. August 31 is already Chelmonski in Ternopil. From there he writes to his wife: "I am writing to you from the farthest point of my journey. I will go from here to the side still, and in two days I will already be approaching you [Paris -TM]. I see beautiful things here. We'll be able to come here for the summer instead of going to the sea [to the Normandy coast... (TM)] You can't write to me, because I'm still on the road."
Ternopil, picturesquely located on the Seret River, was a city widely famous for its fairs and weekly markets. So, no doubt, it was here in Ternopil that Chelmonski looked for motifs for his paintings. Chełmoński, in the letter quoted above, informs his wife that he will still go sideways from Tarnopol. Unfortunately, we do not know where. Perhaps he had in mind a visit to one of the towns known for their fairs. Perhaps it could have been Kozova, or Ulashkivtsy. Yarmolynce seems less likely, as being too far from Ternopil. [...] "In Chełmoński's legacy, in the family collection, there are preserved professional photographs of large size, showing a multitude of borderland types and figures, views of architecture, genre and landscape views. Thus, I have the right to assume that Chełmoński, in addition to drawing sketches from nature (but also sometimes made on the basis of his, I have no hesitation in saying, brilliant visual memory), also used the aforementioned photographic support material, in addition to personally commissioned photographs of motifs of interest to him. Thus, it should be assumed that Chełmoński, in his paintings, created, subject to artistic, but also commercial rules, images of the fair, rather than a recreated concrete, real scene. Importantly, however, the depiction proposed by Chelmonski, with the suggestiveness of the
artistic vision, became more real than the harsh reality itself - it created a synonym for the Polish fair with its exoticism and picturesqueness" (T.Matuszczak, "Józef Chełmoński, Jarmark na kresach, Radziejowice 2013, p. 18).
It is characteristic for the Parisian period of Chełmoński's work that the signature (name and surname) on his paintings was written in verso, without Polish diacritical marks, just as the year of painting was almost always specified with the word: "paris" written in lower case. For the sake of clarification, it should also be added that during his stay in Paris, Chełmoński used two forms of his name in signatures: JOZEF or JOSEPH. The signature on our painting is written in italics, with Polish diacritical marks, and the designation of the place where the work was created is written in Polish: "in paris." All this could indicate, in my opinion, that the painting was commissioned from Chełmoński by some compatriot and hence the signature in the native language. (...) Unfortunately, it proved impossible to determine the ordering party. Moreover, a whole century of the painting's history is shrouded in a fog of mystery. The quoted excerpts are from: Tadeusz Matuszczak, "Józef Chełmoński, "At the Fair", [First public showing of the painting since it was painted in 1883]", Radziejowice 2009.