Signed on reverse on canvas med: JERZY NOWOSIELSKI [vertical], next to 1965; p.g.: 120
On the reverse two stickers:
- l.g. sticker of the 5th International Biennale of Contemporary Art in San Marino 1965 with details of the painting in French, in p.g. corner of sticker no. 29 [in circle], l.g. trace of Italian customs stamp [?]
- p.g. sticker of the Central Bureau of Artistic Exhibitions - Zacheta Warsaw filled in with letters: Deposit | Radom Museum [crossed out] Poznan | 113 catalog [...].
On p. loom strip two stickers: one printed with details of the painting in Polish and English, next to the other on paper tape in ink: 0590/65 | EABBB | ABB [in circle].
Authenticity of the painting consulted with Mr. Andrzej Szczepaniak.
Image exhibited, described and reproduced:
- San Marino, Palazzo del Kursaal, V Biennale Internazionale d'Arte Contemporanea della Republica di San Marino, 31 July - 30 September 1965, cat. 3;
- Painting. Anna Güntner, Włodzimierz Kunz, Danuta Kluza, Jerzy Nowosielski [exhibition cat.], Kraków, BWA, 22 Oct - Nov 1966, cat. 21, ill. 5 ch.-b;
- Jerzy Nowosielski [exhibition cat.], ZPAP Silesian Gallery, Gliwice, 17 I - 5 II 1967, il. 6 p.-b;
- Lublin, BWA, 19 III - 5 IV 1967;
- Jerzy Nowosielski [exhibition cat.], BWA Exhibition Pavilion, Cracow, 19 I - 17 II 1974, il. 5 ch.-b;
- Jerzy Nowosielski [cat. of exhibition], National Museum in Poznań, 1993, ill. II 59, cat. i. 113, s. 170;
- Jerzy Nowosielski, National Museum in Wroclaw, 25 June-19 September 1993;
- Jerzy Nowosielski, Zachęta National Art Gallery, Warsaw, Oct. 4-Nov. 1, 1993;
- Agata Ławniczak, A Sign in the Mountains, TVP Poznań 1995 (the image appears in a film devoted to Jerzy Nowosielski's work in 3'52'');
- Mieczyslaw Porębski, A Sign in the Mountains, in Mieczyslaw Porębski, Nowosielski, Cracow 2003, pp. 186-187.
In the 1950s and 1960s, synthetic landscapes appear in Jerzy Nowosielski's work, in which, in his characteristic way, the artist combines elements of figurative art and abstraction. Cubized forms taken from nature, are merged with a plane view of the whole, typical of an icon. Andrzej Kostolowski wrote about Nowosielski's mountain landscapes: Among landscape elements, mountains seem to have a special significance. They are, after all, both the loftiest and border on the sky. [...] As is well known, Eastern Christian painting perpetuated the sign-like character of rocks in semi-geometric arrangements of solids, with particular emphasis on trapezoidal forms. The artist paints such spiritual mountains with fondness and mastery. [quoted by A. Kostolowski, Between Heaven and Earth, in Jerzy Nowosielski. Exhibition Catalogue, National Museum in Poznań 1993, pp. 65-66]
Thesign in the mountains also appears in a film of the same title, made by Agata Ławniczak in 1995. In his text about this work, Mieczysław Porębski wrote: "The sign in the mountains" is the title of a painting by Jerzy Nowosielski, painted quite a long time ago, thirty years ago, in 1965. It is small, very simple. The background is filled with a brown-green band, descending with a kink towards the center, as if under the pressure of the blue sky, which wanted to be closer to the earth, cover it with a protective shade of infinity like the illuminated lantern of an Orthodox church, somewhere in the mountains precisely. "Is it a mountain or a veil?" - Joanna Pollakówna once asked. And a mountain, and a veil, like everything Nowosielski paints. And the Sign? The Sign is a small square in an orangish border at the foot of that mystery-hiding Veil. A sign of what? Someone's separate, absorbing top-down Brightness of blue, presence? Closer to it runs an orangish steak from somewhere. This very small image opens a whole suite of the following ones, which [...] will move before our eyes in the film dedicated to the artist by the author of the screenplay - Agata Ławniczak, and the cinematographer - Karol Żurawski.
♣ 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)
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.
