Jan Cybis, PLAZA W USTKA, 1964

66,0 x 81,0cm - oil, canvas signed p. d.: J. Cybis

signed on the reverse on canvas g.: JAN CYBIS | "PLAŻA W USTCE" 1964 65 x 81, above address: WARSAW ul. Karowa 14/16, on the g. strip of the loom in marker: 444



Image exhibited and reproduced:

- Jan Cybis, National Museum in Warsaw, II - III 1965, ill. 30, p. nlb., item cat. 83, p. 67.



Image described:

- List of works, compiled by. H. Cybisowa, [in:] T. Dominik, Jan Cybis, Arkady, Warsaw 1984, item 346, p. 134 [as family property].



The last dozen years or so of Jan Cybis' oeuvre were largely defined by landscapes with marine themes. They consisted of both smaller forms executed in gouache or watercolor and oil paintings. The former were painted "from nature" - they acted as holiday sketchbooks with painterly notes, on the basis of which the artist later "settled" the canvases in the studio. One of them was a view of the beach in Ustka, a coastal town presented in the catalog, which, next to Orlowo, Kuźnica, or Sopot, was one of the painter's most frequented places. Tadeusz Dominik recalled in a monograph dedicated to his teacher: He discovered the charms of small ports with their quiet, sleepy existence. All the accumulated experience, gained over the years on still lifes and models, bore dazzling fruit. [...] He painted various bays with small boats in the warm light of the ending day or frozen in the blue water - as if
in lead - boats against a cloudy sky, or piles embedded in the sand and water, as if stepping towards the horizon - into the sea. Sometimes there will be only three horizontal plans - sky, water, beach: a bright sky with a few clouds, navy blue-graphite water (on the water white vigorous lines - windy weather) and a grayish patch of land.

Dominated by cool blues, the depiction of the Baltic beach, like most of the seascapes in the series, was characterized by the use of rich, heavy texture. Zdzislaw Kepinski wrote about its peculiarities in the introduction to the catalog of an exhibition held at the National Museum in Warsaw in 1965: Nothing could be falser than the supposition that Cybis, sometimes applying thick layers of paint, is trying to achieve textural effects [...] They arise in his paintings only as a by-product of returning repeatedly to the painting to give its colorful surface depth and juiciness of tone, to give the matter of paint such consistency that light would become an element embracing and engulfing not only the volatile, but also the heavy, physical components of the painting.

Typical of the Capist leader's "struggle" with the matter of paint translated into extraordinary luminosity and sonority of colors, which perfectly reflected the lyrical atmosphere of a small resort and the beauty of the sea element.



♣ to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, will be added a fee resulting from the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Act of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite)

Jan Cybis (Wróblin in Opole Silesia 1897 - Warsaw 1972) began his studies in painting at the Academy of Art and Artistic Industry in Wroclaw (1920-1921). He then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow under Jozef Pankiewicz. In 1924, together with a group of colleagues forming the so-called Paris Committee (abbreviated to "KP"; hence the group's name "Kapists"), he went to Paris, where he continued his studies initially in contact with Pankiewicz, and later on his own. In 1930 he took part in the first exhibition of the Kapists at Galerie Zak in Paris, later in a joint exhibition in Geneva, and after returning to Poland in 1931 also in a group exhibition at the Polish Art Club in Warsaw. In 1932 he had his first solo exhibition in Cracow. He was the main figure of the group, a promoter of assumptions that put forward the issue of color, which "was the content and form" of his paintings. His last exhibition at Warsaw's Zachęta Gallery provided an opportunity to trace his very consistent creative path. Rejecting all anecdote, he created paintings painted "with a plastic reason" - landscapes, still lifes, portraits. He was also a translator and art critic, and wrote articles, including for the Cracow-based "Voice of the Artists" In 1946 he became a professor at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, where he taught until 1968 (with a break 1951-1957). In 1955 he also taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sopot.