Zbigniew Makowski, LA NUVOLA (cloud), 1972

73.0 x 65.0 cm - acrylic, canvas signed l.d.: Zbigniew Makowski f 1972

On the reverse:

- inscription on canvas: LA NUVOLA;

- on the upper slat of the loom: 73 x 65;

- on the g. loom bar l.g. author's sticker mpis: ZBIGNIEW MAKOWSKI | LA NUVOLA, next to the no. in marker: 23;

- on the g. of the loom poles p.g. printed sticker with No. 497, underneath it a partially destroyed sticker: LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA | 36 ESPOSIZIONE BIENNALE INTERNA ZIONALE D'ARTE 1972 | [mpis:] MAKOWSKI ZBIGNIEW | [other details illegible];

- on canvas m.g. printed sticker: DESA | WORKS OF MODERN ART | Foreign Trade Company | WARSAW - POLAND | al. Jerozolimskie 2, boxes with data about the work filled in by hand with letters: Zbigniew Makowski | "La Nuvola" | 1973 73 x 65 acril/leine | Art Faire '76 - Bologna;

- on l. loom sticker of shipping company, printed on red paper: Agence Maritime DELAMARE & Cie, boxes unfilled except N/Réf. 502878/ LAUSANNE;

- on p. loom poles 2 stickers print. Venice Biennale: tax stamp, crossed out, marked and no: ga | 17484 and damaged sticker headed XXXVI Bien.... di... and no. 40;

- on the bottom of the loom sticker: GALERIE JEANNE BUCHER | 3 RUE DE SEINE PARIS VI [...], filled in in type: Zbigniew Makowski | La Nuvola | Peinture acrylique sur toile | 1972 - 73 cm x 65 cm.

Image exhibited:

- XXXVI Venice Biennale. Polish section, Venice 1972;

- Zbigniew Makowski, Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris 17 April - 5 June 1973, cat. no. 12;

- Zbigniew Makowski, Galerie Alice Pauli, Lausanne, 1 Oct-10 Nov 1973, item cat. 12;

- International Fair "Arte Fiera 76," Bologna, 23 - 30 May 1976;

- Painting of Zbigniew Makowski, BWA in Bialystok, Bialystok, XII 1978, (listed in exhibition folder, cat. item 8);

- Modern Polish Art, Galerie Asbaek, Copenhagen 9 I - 27 I 1979.

Anna Baranova wrote about the rich, multithreaded symbolism in Zbigniew Makowski's work: Makowski, who is an agnostic, creates a world of his own mythology, thick with meanings - at the same time strongly saturated with culture and self-thematic. All symbols made present in the form of an abstract sign or a three-dimensional figure, all quotations solemnly framing the pictorial field or permeating the space with a network of intricate calligraphy - have reference to his experiences and reflections. Their repetition is of an almost neurotic nature. The metamorphoses of the same motifs start from one source and lead to it. It is the mind and heart of the artist. Makowski's search for simplicity moves within the labyrinth. In 1970 he wrote about the essence of the creative path, his own path above all: "The artist's individual creative path up close resembles a crazy, paroxysmal-heterogeneous labyrinth (especially for himself!) with its chasms and shoals, forests of symbols and meadows overgrown with the grass of memories, with its escapes and returns, attacks and defenses, loves and fears - from a distance (who knows how far?) it looks like the realization of a CONSEQUENCE of which the creator himself either knows (...) or does not know, but which necessity, which judgment as it were, he realizes with his whole life." The labyrinths in Makowski's works either reveal themselves from a bird's eye view, or show themselves in perspective foreshortening, or through formally contradictory yet internally coherent events and permeations of different spaces. The same symbols of initiation and spiritual path constantly appear in them: a well, a cup, a sword, a ladder, a staircase, a spiral, a key, a bird, a ball, a dice, etc. (...) "Life-giving braiding" - of abstractionism and naturalism, experiment and canon, intuition and reason, body and spirit, image and text. (Anna Baranova, Ars magna, in "Literary Decade" No. 5/6, 2011, pp. 77, 79)

♣ to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, will be added a fee resulting from the right of the creator and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Law of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite).

Zbigniew Makowski (Warsaw, 31 I 1930 - Warsaw, 19 VIII 2019) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1950 to 1956, receiving his diploma in the studio of Kazimierz Tomorowicz. Initially he leaned towards Surrealism - during his stay in Paris in 1962 he came into contact with André Breton and the international Phases movement. However, the decisive influence on the expression of his art came from the non-painterly interests he pursued. He is literate, poetic, erudite, especially an expert in the broad spectrum of philosophy and secret knowledge of many cultures. He uses this expertise in his paintings, drawings, as well as in unique books, which he makes with his own hands on specially prepared papers. In his works he layers symbols, quotations and meanings into a seemingly unreadable chaos. However, one should believe critics who claim that Makowski's works open up a world of peculiar narrative for the patient and intellectually prepared "reader." In turn, the artist himself draws attention to the "permutation" structure of his works, in which various quotations and cultural references are intertwined with his private iconography. Be that as it may, it is certainly possible to distinguish a certain visual-symbolic "alphabet" in Makowski's works, the elements of which constantly appear in them in various configurations. These include, for example, such images as a key, ladder, well, mandala, chalice, etc. They are surrounded by inscriptions, often in Latin, as well as single numbers, letters and ornaments. Someone described them as rebuses of great beauty, which can be read, and can also be contemplated. Since 1982, the artist stopped exhibiting, but not creating. At that time, works were created that were a kind of modern notebook, started back in the 1960s, to which the artist returns with new thoughts. The artist is the recipient of many awards, including the Norwid Art Criticism Award (1973) and the Jan Cybis Award (1992). His large composition "Mirabilitas secundum diversos modos exire potest a rebus" (1973-1980) adorns the Geneva headquarters of the United Nations as a gift from the Polish government.