Jan Cybis (1897 - 1972), Walk, 1959

oil, canvas; 65 x 81 cm;
Signed p. d.: "J. Cybis";
Signed, dated and described on the reverse: "JAN CYBIS - WARSAW / 14 Karowa St. / "SPACER" 1959 65 x 81".

Provenance:
private collection, Austria

Exhibited painting:
- Jan Cybis. Catalog of the exhibition , National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw, February - March 1965
- Jan Cybis 1897-1972 , Galerie C. Bednarczyk, Vienna, 26.06. - 10.07. 1973

Reproduced image:
- Jan Cybis oil paintings, watercolors, drawings. Catalog , National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw 1965, p. 35, cat. no. 288, il. 288 (il. cz.-b.)
- Jan Cybis. Exhibition catalog , National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw 1965, p. 65, cat. no. 41, il. 14 (color ill.)
- Jan Cybis 1897-1972 , Galerie C. Bednarczyk, Vienna 1973, p. 25, il. 11 (il. cz.-b.).
- Jan Cybis 1897-1972 , E. Surm-Bednarczyk, Vienna 2014, p. 28. (color il.)

Bibliography:
Dobrowolski T., Nowoczesne malarstwo polskie , vol. 3, Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, Wrocław-Warszawa-Kraków, 1964.

A work from the mature period of the leading Polish colorist. The painting "Spacer" is well known in the literature and catalogs of the artist's works. Among other things, it participated in a significant solo exhibition of Cybis' paintings at the National Museum in Warsaw. The composition was painted with broad brushstrokes with heavily impastoed canvas surface. It perfectly reflects the Kapist style, including a move away from reproducing nature to individual, painterly expression on the motif seen and experienced. Color becomes a tool for capturing impressions, but also for conveying the artist's emotions. Tadeusz Dobrowolski interestingly noted: "in his canvases, content and form absorb each other, creating one, that is, a new object - a painting." He added: "in landscapes [...] still lifes, there were often a lot of undefined places and, from a realistic point of view, unclear, existing only as a spot or streak of paint, however, the whole, painterly interesting, gave the impression of a logical, static and permanent structure.[...] Spatial form, solidity and contour dissolved into a dense, rough, multicolored mass."
In 1957, the artist returned as a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and settled in a new location with a studio on Karowa Street. A year later he participated in the International Exhibition of Art of the Socialist Countries in Moscow, and three years later in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Paris, where he presented five of his canvases.