collage / cardboard pasted on canvas
47 x 35.5 cm
52.8 x 41.3 cm (with frame)
signed and dated on the reverse p.d.: MWarzecha | 1961
Marian Warzecha conducted original formal experiments, mainly in the form of collages, as early as during his studies at the local art high school. It was this technique that remained particularly close to him for the next long decades. Later, he studied painting (1949-1950) and stage design (1952-1956) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, as well as ethnography and art history at the Jagiellonian University. He co-founded the Krakow Group, which was reactivated in 1957. He participated in the Second Exhibition of Modern Art in Warsaw in 1957 and in the Symposium of Artists and Scientists in Puławy in 1966.
Turning in the circles of Tadeusz Kantor, Warzecha briefly succumbed to a fascination with informel, but by the late 1950s he had returned to works in his favorite medium of collage and, somewhat later, assemblage. His work was characterized by a peculiar asceticism, even a "poverty" of the small objects used and a narrow range of colors maintained in natural, muted tones. Together with his wife Teresa Rudowicz, he composed collages using manuscripts or old engravings found in antique stores, sometimes bearing his own inscriptions. Exploring the possibilities of a plastic work in the context of textuality to some extent included Marian Warzecha in the circle of conceptual artists.
