sign. l.d.: Lebenstein 64
Signed on the reverse on fawn p.g.: Lebenstein | "Patagonien" | 1964
on the reverse:
- on the upper loom strip a sticker (print/machine): Expos. "Surréalisme et l'Art Fantastique" | (Pologne) | BIENNALE DE SÃO PAULO septembre-novembre 1965 [date in red ink] | nom et prénom: LEBENSTEIN Jan, | Titre de l'oeuvre: Patagonien, 1964 | Cat...et dimensions: 97 x 195 | Huile | Artiste | [below address illegible due to sticker damage];
- next to the sticker an inscription in thin pen: Destinateur. Mr. Albert Grokoest | New York;
- on the crossbar of the loom an inscription: Patagonien and a sticker of Chris Sztyber's collection with details of the painting;
- on the left vertical strip of the loom, inscription in white crayon: POLONIA;
- next to a French transport sticker with the painting's data and destination Sao Păulo;
- next to sticker in ink: JL
- on second vertical strip sticker (print): 7. PATAGONIEN | Oil on canvas | 38'' x 77''
Provenance:
- Collection of Dr. Albert Grokoest (1917-1991) - physician, prominent American specialist in rheumatology and friend of Lebenstein. A great promoter of his work, he organized several exhibitions of the artist together with curator Kenneth Brown.
- Collection of Christopher Sztyber, USA.
Image described and exhibited:
- Surrealismo e arte fantástica, 1965, catalog of the exhibition accompanying the VIII São Paulo Biennale (listed as Patagônio, 1964), nn. (http://www.bienal.org.br/ publicacoes/7047);
- Jan Lebenstein, The Kosciuszko Foundation, New York, September 5-24, 1995;
- Chris Sztyber, My second world. My Second World. Polish Painting Collection. Polish Painting Collection, published by GRAF-US Grzegorz Kraska, Kielce, color ill. p. 105.
After the tremendous international success of his "Drawn Figures" and "Axial Figures" series (1956-1960), the artist, in the opinion of many of his contemporaries, was at a dangerous point in his career. Meanwhile, against all pressure from critics to "ossify and move once and for all to the Nomenklatura at this price," he underwent a complete metamorphosis of his previous painting. In his new series of "Monstrous Animals" (1960-1965), often with toponymic titles like, among others, Carpathien, Capadotien, L'Anatolien, and - Patagonien - variations on human figures stretched on a vertical axis give way to horizontally framed animal-like forms. The change in the content of the canvases entailed profound transformations in the painting layer. The artist abandoned graphic, precise drawing in favor of coarse, thickened paint. The intended effect of emphasizing the mass of the painting and giving it relief, resulted from the direct paleontological inspiration of the artist, who spent long hours analyzing the collections of the Paris Museum of Natural History. A summary of the work on the beasts imitating predators from the Ice Age can be found in an anecdote that Krzysztof Pomian quoted in the pages of "Kultura" (Paris 1985, 7-8, p. 27): A zoologist who visited Lebenstein's studio in the 1960s remarked that although the animals depicted in them do not exist, but could exist, they were biologically convincing. Imagination matched nature....
Jan Lebenstein (Brest Litovsk 1930 - Krakow 1999) studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1948 to 1954 under Prof. Eugeniusz Eibisch and Artur Nacht-Samborski. In 1955 he took part in an exhibition at the Warsaw Arsenal. A friend of Miron Białoszewski during his studies, he showed his first solo exhibition in 1956 at the Tarczynska Theater. In 1959, he won the Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris at the First Biennale of the Young in Paris, and moved to Paris permanently that year. After the series of "drawn figures" (on millimeter paper) and "hieratic figures" from 1955-1958, he paints a series of "axial figures" (1958-1962), which he exhibits in Paris and the USA. At the same time, in 1960, he starts drawing "carnets," a kind of diary, which in the future will provide the motifs used in the paintings. In 1964-1965 he paints "Bestiary," a series of textured, archaic creatures reminiscent of prehistoric excavations. Immediately after, he introduces human and fantastic figures into his paintings, acting out scenes neither mythological nor from a dream, often imbued with eroticism. In 1970, he designs stained glass windows for the Centre du Dialogue in Paris. In 1971 receives French citizenship 1974 creates gouaches inspired by George Orwell's Animal Farm. In 1976-1989, he creates exclusively in gouache and pastel, taking up mythological themes and those taken from the Bible: cycles of illustrations to the Book of Job (published in 1979) and the Apocalypse (published in 1986) in new translations by Czeslaw Milosz. In 1989 he returns to oil painting (series "Pergamon"). The artist received, among others, the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Award in 1976, the Warsaw Archdiocese Museum Award in 1985, the Jan Cybis Award in 1987.
