Jerzy Nowosielski, GIMNASTICS, 1951

30.5 x 35.0 cm - oil, plywood signed on the reverse g. in blue paint: Jerzy Nowosielski 1951

p.d. framing instructions



Authenticity of the painting consulted with Andrzej Szczepaniak - art historian, curator of exhibitions, executive director of Starmach Gallery, editor, among others, of the albums Henryk Stażewski (2018), Jerzy Nowosielski (2019) published by Skira.



An important current in Jerzy Nowosielski's work are figurative paintings with erotic themes, created since the early 1950s. This part of his work was described by Krystyna Czerni as follows: Sports themes are an attempt to compromise with the postulates of the era, but the bizarre, acrobatic poses of the girls, their mysterious, erotic drill - suggest hidden, subconscious meanings. Female athletes with heavy, massive bodies have some kind of pathology in them. Bulky and disproportionate, with spreading hips, thick thighs - "firm and kneecap," as Tyrmand would say - they stand in paramilitary array, creating a bodily barrier, an obstacle to be overcome. Some will interpret these works in a political context: as a metaphor for enslavement, subjugation and power. Others as an objection to the coarse sexuality of communist Poland, with its proletarian beauty of flamboyant tractor women stripped of their femininity. Nowosielski's peculiar sports productions, however, conceal too much of the author's apparent pleasure for their eroticism to be considered "oppositional." "I am interested in sports as a manifestation of nudity," the painter admits. Sport is a substitute activity for a man longing for an authentic erotic experience." It is about these paintings that Jerzy Tchórzewski would write years later that they are children of Socialist Realism from an illegitimate bed, and successful children at that. (Krystyna Czerni, Bat in the Temple. Biography of Jerzy Nowosielski, Krakow 2018, p. 169)



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

Jerzy Nowosielski (Krakow 1923 - Krakow 2011) began his studies at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Krakow in 1940. In 1942 he stayed for less than a year in the St. John the Baptist Lavra near Lviv. There he studied the art of painting and the history of icons. After returning to Cracow in 1943, he re-established contacts with the circle of the future Cracow Group. After the war, he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow under Prof. Eugeniusz Eibisch (1945-1947). At the First Exhibition of Modern Art in Cracow in 1948/49, he showed paintings maintained in the trend of geometric abstraction. During the years of Socialist Realism, he did not exhibit, dealing at the time with stage design and painting churches and orthodox churches. In 1955 in Lodz he presented his first solo exhibition, in 1956 he participated in the XXVIII Venice Biennale. From 1957 to 1962 he was a teacher at the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Lodz, then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, where he taught at the Faculty of Painting until his retirement in 1993. In the second half of the 1950s he achieved a distinctive style of nudes, landscapes and figural scenes in interiors, which he owed to his fascination with icons and his experience with sacred painting. In 1976, he took up monumental works anew, producing mural paintings, Stations of the Cross and designs for stained glass windows in the Church of Divine Providence in Wesola near Warsaw (1976-1979). The artist was widely recognized as an authority on art rooted in spiritual values.

Jerzy Nowosielski died on February 21, 2011 in Krakow, Poland.