Zbigniew Makowski, WITHOUT TITLE, 1973-1978

28,5 x 36,6cm - pen ink, watercolor, gouache, cream handmade paper

28.5 x 36.6 cm (in light of passe-partout)

signed in ink below: Zbigniew Makowski. IX.1973. - XI.1978

On the reverse: an inscription in ink in the artist's hand: I made this drawing for probably three evenings | before Teresa's stay in the clinic and my trip to | Switzerland. It would have been very difficult (and was already) | to continue it because of the "anachronism" of the way | of drawing, however, on closer comparison, | one can see that it differs from the "main body" of similar | drawings from before (!) 2-3 years at least. | The stay "on the Sands" is probably | towards the end, I have no watercolor here. Maybe, | in a similarly quasianachronistic way I will color | it one day. | 27.X.1973. Zbigniew Makowski fuit & fecit & delineavit

♣ 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 Act of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite)

Zbigniew Makowski (Warsaw, 31 I 1930 - Warsaw, August 19, 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-scale 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.