Jerzy Kalucki, Definition of CC, 1999

Acrylic, canvas; 160 x 135 cm;
On the reverse:
- signed and described: "Jerzy Kalucki / DEFINITION CC";
- Exhibition sticker from the Museum of Art in Olomouc with information about the painting

Provenance:
private collection, Warsaw

Image exhibited and reproduced:
- Jerzy Kalucki , Starmach Gallery, Krakow, April-May 2001;
- Categories of Space by Jerzy Kalucki , BWA Gallery of Contemporary Art in Katowice, Katowice, March - May 2007;
- Abstraction.PL. Abstraction in Polish Painting 1945-2017 , Museum Umeni, Olomouc, April - August 2018.

Reproduced image:
- Jerzy Kalucki. Catalog from the exhibition , Starmach Gallery, 2001;
- Kowalska B., Spaces of Jerzy Kalucki, Centrum Sztuki Galeria EL in Elbląg, 2007, p.77;
- Abstraction.PL. Abstraction in Polish Painting 1945-2017 , edited by Beata Gawronska-Oramus, exhibition catalog, Museum Umeni, Olomouc, 2018, pp.410-411 (color ill.).

Bibliography:

Kowalska B., Creators - attitudes. Artists of my gallery, Krakow 1981.

Jerzy Kalucki consistently developed his individual painting language throughout his career. Already the first works of the artist from the mid-1950s were part of the geometric abstraction trend. Compositions from this period were based on pure vertical and horizontal divisions. In the first half of the 1960s, mainly monochromatic compositions in black and white were created. The artist shaped the picture space with geometric arrangements, using material and texture variations. In 1968, the artist returned to color, becoming bolder and bolder in introducing flat-painted, pure color fields into his compositions. The year also brought new geometric forms. Circular and elliptical forms began to appear on canvases. Kalucki gained full stylistic distinctiveness at the end of the 1960s. The features of the works created at that time will characterize the artist's works until the end of his creative activity. Among them are technical perfection, decorativeness, economy and harmony. They also do not lack conceptual charge. The artist subtly disturbed the balance of the composition, causing the viewer to feel uneasy about the "almost" perfection. Poetic interference in the ideal geometric figures stirred the imagination of the viewer, who by intellectual effort was supposed to add the further course of the broken line of the circle or the missing fragment of the geometric figure. The space of Jerzy Kalucki's paintings is not limited by the size of the canvas, but by the range of human imagination.

All these most important stylistic features of Jerzy Kalucki's painting characterize the presented painting Definition of CC from 1999, belonging to the last stage of the artist's work, fully aware of and drawing from his previous experiences. The arrangement, built from half-circles of different spans and horizontal divisions, is characterized by precision of execution. The flat color stain contrasts with the anxiety of the multiplied and fragmented figures. A clear color dominant is the red semicircle, dynamizing the composition. The harmonious whole strongly affects the emotions and imagination of the viewer.