Wladyslaw Jackiewicz, Figure I, 1974

oil, canvas, 150 x 100 cm signed p.d.: Jackiewicz; signed, dated and described on the stretcher: W. Jackiewicz FIGURA I / 74./Gdańsk. Mariacka 50-2

provenance: purchased directly from the artist, 2015 exhibited: Wladyslaw Jackiewicz. Mowa ciała, Piękna Gallery, Warsaw, September-October 2019 Wladyslaw Jackiewicz (1924-2016) Graduated from elementary and junior high school in Vilnius. He studied painting at the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Gdansk (now the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk). He received his diploma in the atelier of Artur Nacht-Samborski in 1952. From 1951 to 1984 he was an employee at his alma mater. From 1965 to 1968 he served as dean of the Faculty of Painting, and from 1969 to 1981 he was the rector of the Gdansk Academy of Fine Arts.

Jackiewicz owes his early interest in colorism to his acquaintance with Piotr Potworowski and Artur Nacht Samborski. He made his debut at the exhibition "Against War - Against Fascism" at Warsaw's Arsenal in 1955. He was identified with the so-called Sopot School. At the time, he painted landscapes, landscapes with figural staffage and occasionally thematic compositions. Through cubic figures and lyrical, economical landscapes, Jackiewicz's work evolved towards allusive abstraction and matter painting. In the mid-1960s, he created a series of paintings built from geometric color planes. These planes took on more rounded and organic shapes over time, making up the silhouette of a female body. We see bright patches of color resembling bodies with a well-defined waist and prominent hips. The stained ground, laser-laid paint and visible traces of drawing allowed the artist to achieve subtle color and formal effects. Jackiewicz's painting constantly remained on the border between abstraction and figuration. The artist avoided literalism and cheap eroticism, thus leaving the viewer a wide room for interpretation. His works are in many prestigious museum collections, including the National Museum in Warsaw, Gdansk, also the National Museum in Prague, the Museum in Skopje, as well as in private collections at home and abroad in Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, USA, Denmark.

I do not use a model. It is useless for my story about nudity - the nudity of the body - the body of a woman. Today, nudity is not covered. Its view is provided by the so-called mass media in excess. The memory of the paintings I have seen, whose mastery of depictions of nude figures has reached the highest level, the memory of the nature I have seen and my imaginings lead me through all stages of the search for the right expression of my painting statement. Imagining things or events is always more interesting, more beautiful than reality - Wladyslaw Jackiewicz.