Wacław Taranczewski, STILL NATURE

50.5 x 70.0cm - pastel, cream paper signed p.d.: T.

Waclaw Taranczewski (Czarnkow 4 III 1903 - Krakow 11 II 1987) studied from 1921 to 1929 alternately graphics at the School of Decorative Arts in Poznan under Jan Jerzy Wroniecki and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow under Fryderyk Pautsch and Felicjan Szczęsny Kowarski. With the latter, in 1929, he moved to the School of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where he completed his education in 1931. From 1932 he remained friends with Tadeusz Piotr Potworowski. Together with Kowarski's students, he belonged to the "Prism" group (1933-1939). In 1935 he went to Paris and from there to Italy. Upon his return, he was entrusted with running a gallery called Salon 35 in Poznań, which he did until the outbreak of World War II, organizing more than 50 exhibitions there. In 1937 he traveled with Potworowski to Greece and Italy. He survived the war and occupation years in Poznań, working as a laborer and teaching drawing secretly. In 1945, he was elected the first president of ZPAP and took over the leadership of the reactivated School of Decorative Arts (since 1946 the State Higher School of Fine Arts). In 1947 he was given the Chair of Decorative Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow and settled there permanently in 1950. His painting is an individual, conscious synthesis of colorism and tendencies close to cubism. They are characterized by natural harmony and coherence of composition, color, spatial plans. Taranczewski is also one of the most outstanding post-war artists of monumental painting. He created, among others, the plafond of the auditorium of Adam Mickiewicz University (1947), frescoes in the churches of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1954) and St. Martin in Poznan (1957), as well as stained glass windows in the cathedrals of Poznan and Warsaw.