Dimensions: 166.5 x 16 x 5 cm
signed, dated and described on the reverse: '16 x 166 | STARY OGRÓD | AN OLD GARDEN | Zbigniew Makowski | Warsaw 1962'.
Provenance
collection of Bart N. Stephens, Poland-USA
(purchased directly from the artist)
Shapiro, New York, 2018
institutional collection, Poland
Exhibited
Zbigniew Makowski Gemälde und Gouachen, Zeichnungen und Büche, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 16.02-8.04.1973
Biography
Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (1950-56). He was involved in various fields of study: mathematics, Eastern culture, and was passionate about Kabbalism. Combining signs, numbers and letters in his compositions, he achieved symbolic and surreal effects. He participated in the Third Exhibition of Modern Art in Warsaw in 1959, and is a recipient of the Cyprian Kamil Norwid Art Criticism Award. In 1956 he graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (studio of Kazimierz Tomorowicz). In 1962 he was in France and participated in the exhibition "Le Mouvement Surréaliste et le Mouvement Phases" in Paris. He cultivates Surrealist art, testifying to his fascination with esoteric knowledge. In the 1960s he composed his paintings from magic signs, symbols and props, also sentences and longer texts. In the 1970s and 1980s, he painted esoteric-magical landscapes, usually depicting fragments of ancient architecture, above which float symbolic objects "Vale ergo polia, Et ibam in profundis." He received the C.K. Norwid Art Criticism Award and the J. Cybis Awards.
