Witold Leszek Kaczanowski (Ps. Witold-K) (1932), WITHOUT TITLE, 1974

acrylic/canvas, 127 x 112 cm
signed p.d. and l.g.: Witold-K. 1974

Witold Kaczanowski won international fame with his distinctive individual vision in painting. The artist was always oriented in the mainstream of art, but remained, so to speak, beside it, maintaining originality. In 2007, his retrospective exhibition took place at Sotheby's auction house in Amsterdam.
Since 1960, Vytautas-K's work has been dominated by multifigural compositions with depictions of human figures with characteristic simplified silhouettes. Earlier, however, in the 1950s, the artist created purely abstract compositions, and he did not abandon abstraction in later decades either. Works of this type are eminently decorative. Among the most interesting abstract realizations are spatial forms. In 1958 Kaczanowski created designs for suspended sculptures of organic shapes reminiscent of Henry Moore's sculptures. From 1975, in turn, come designs of sculptural forms intended to be hung on the wall and others to be suspended from the ceiling. On numerous canvases Witold-K depicted objects resembling these three-dimensional works. The featured painting is an excellent example of this. The forms filling its plane have been modeled in such a way that they seem sculpted. Kaczanowski combined softly worked, rounded fragments with sharp-edged elements in an extremely effective way. Thanks to such contrasting forms, they strongly affect the viewer's emotions. It is also worth noting that in order to diversify the viewer's experience, the artist included the possibility of two-way exposure of the work.