Stefan Krygier (1923-1997), PORTRAIT OF THE WIFE, FROM THE CYCLE: FORM SYMULTANISM, 1982

oil/canvas, 120 x 70 cm
signed and dated p.d.: S.Krygier 82
dated and described on the reverse: FROM THE SERIES SYMULTANISM OF FORM | TITLE
"PORTRAIT OF A WIFE" | 1982 | FORMAT 120 X 70 | GLUE GROUND | TALENS REMBRANDT OIL PAINTS | MOUNTING NOTE
EXHIBITED:
- Stefan Krygier - painting, printmaking, sculpture. Jubilee exhibition - 40 years of creative work, BWA Łódź, April 1988, Łódź 1988.
LITERATURE:
- Stefan Krygier - painting, graphics, sculpture. Jubilee exhibition - 40 years of creative work, BWA Łódź, April 1988 [exhibition cat.], Łódź 1988, cat. no. 63 [repr.].
- Stefan Krygier 1923-1997, Museum of the History of the City of Lodz, November-December 1999 [cat. exhibition], ed. by Krystyna Knapik, Lodz 1999, p. 106.

The artist graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz, where he studied from 1945 to 1950 under Stefan Wegner and Władysław Strzemiński. He was interested in art theory and collaborated with Strzeminski on "Seeing the Gothic". In 1953, he co-founded the St-53 Group, whose members were inspired by Strzeminski's "Theory of Seeing." Krygier's artistic explorations included an analysis of past artistic trends, he was primarily concerned with the problem of space in art, the issue of image structure and the perception of art. He was involved in painting, printmaking and created abstract objects.
"Portrait of a Wife" belongs to the "Simultaneity of Form" series. The concept of simultaneity was explained by the artist himself: "The construction of the painting is based on the creation of a conventional horizontal axis. This axis is contained between two zones, the illusory depth of the painting and the area in front of the painting. This concept is to combine two different visions in one painting. [...] What is painted in the foreground forms the middle layer contained between the illusory space of the painting and the outer space in front of the painting. The vision from inside the painting captures this foreground as the first plane, while what the imagination sees in the zone of space in front of the painting as the background. All that mirrors our imagination is shown in one relationship and is the image within the image. [...] In paintings, we are used to painting and seeing what is in front of us. I propose and convey in my painting what can be seen from the other end of the conventional horizontal axis of the illusory interior of the painting. My goal is not only to create a new form of image construction, but to effect a change in perception, to stimulate the viewer's imagination and expand the emotional zone by simultaneously seeing the whole from two distant positions in a SYMULTANIC form." (Stefan Krygier - painting, printmaking, sculpture. Jubilee Exhibition - 40 years of creative work, BWA Łódź, April 1988 [exhibition cat.], Łódź 1988).
Bożena Kowalska analyzed the relationship between Krygier's ideas and Cubist imagery: "[Cubists] wanting to show an object in its full truth [...] collected its views by looking at it successively from all sides [...] in order to then arrange these views side by side on a plane [...]. Krygier, following their example, also makes attempts to take different points of view of the same reality. Although he adopts only two such points: from the front and from the back, he also makes them reunited on the plane of a single image. [...] The novelty of his concept derived from Cubism lies in the analysis of the possibility of perceiving the depicted objects spatially, from two points of view, with one of them situated opposite to the first, mirror-like, inside the pictorial space" (B. Kowalska, Stefan Krygier - the history of creativity, [in:] Stefan Krygier 1923-1997, Museum of the History of the City of Łódź, November-December 1999 [exhibition catalogue], Łódź 1999, p. 13).
The featured painting depicts an architectural interior open to a landscape with a distant horizon. The half figure of a woman shown in profile has been duplicated, thus accentuating the plans and emphasizing the depth. There is also room in this composition for miniature representations of a dancer performing the so-called bridge. This figure was inspired by the depiction of an Egyptian dancer from an ancient ostracon. She is the main motif of many of Krygier's works from the "Simultanism of Form" series. The dancers are sometimes literally "trapped in the construction" - as the titles of the paintings say. "Portrait of a Wife" is a reflection on the issue of the canon in art (using ancient Egyptian art as an example), but also a dialogue with Renaissance art (convergent perspective; the idea of the image as a window to the world). Also, the profile shot of the woman refers the viewer back to Italian quattrocento portraits, particularly recalling the famous lady painted by Piero del Pollaiola (c. 1470) - a painting kept in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli. The profile or silhouette of Krygier's wife Christina recurs in his numerous compositions. Sometimes the title of a work indicates the concept of the shot, rather than a specific model, as in the case of "Simultaneous Portrait II" (1984). Sometimes, on the other hand, the title reveals that the portrait is more a laboratory of form than a search for resemblance or an attempt to convey the personality of the figure depicted: "Christine in Renaissance Space" (1996). An example of this approach to the art of portraiture is the painting on offer.