Józef Czapski, LANDSCAPE, 1929

45,7 x 32,7cm - oil, crayon, canvas signed p.d.: JÓZEF CZAPSKI | 1929

The painting is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by Adam Konopacki on November 16, 2021.

Provenance: The work comes from the collection of Zygmunt Mycielski, composer and friend of Jozef Czapski, to whom it was given personally by the painter. Then, together with the artists' correspondence, it went to a private collection in Cracow, and in 2021 to a private collection in Warsaw.



The landscape on display is an interesting example from the early, little-known, period of Czapski's work, who at the time was strongly influenced by the Capists.



The landscape is characterized by a dose of "randomness" of choice, the composition with a vertical accumulation of plans causing the effect of "conventionality" / illusion of aerial perspective, the color scheme created by a delicately - "watercolor" - "orchestrated" range of warm tones, "played" on a wide palette of browns - subtly enlivened by elements of red, grayish blue and dark greens, leaving an unpainted part of the sub-painting - creating the effect of "opening up space". [...] The "watercolor" character of the painting, the delicate, repeated brushstrokes, show the close influence of the mutual influence of the colony of Polish artists from the Paris Committee (the so-called Capists).

From the expert opinion of A. Konopacki

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

Józef Czapski (Prague 1896 - Maisons-Laffitte 1993) - painter, draughtsman, writer and publicist; initially studied law, later educated at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts in 1918. He interrupted his studies to go to Russia to search for missing Polish officers at the behest of Polish military authorities.

In 1920 he participated in the Polish-Bolshevik war. In 1923-1924 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. In 1924, together with a group of students of Jozef Pankiewicz, forming the so-called Paris Committee, he went to Paris for further studies, where he stayed until 1931. After returning to Poland, he participated in exhibitions of the Capists, including at the Warsaw Institute of Art Propaganda. A participant in the September campaign, a prisoner of the Starobielsk camp, among others; freed from captivity, he joined the Anders Army and in 1941-1942 led the search for officers and soldiers imprisoned and missing in the USSR.

After 1944, he lived permanently in Maisons-Laffitte near Paris. He was one of the founders of the monthly magazine "Culture." As a writer, he published, among others, Oldobiel Memories, On Inhuman Earth and numerous essays on art. He painted landscapes, still lifes, interiors and, less frequently, portraits. In the 1980s and 1990s, the artist's paintings and drawings were exhibited several times in Krakow, Warsaw, and Poznan.

His painting - initially close to the Pankiewicz school, later very individual and expressive - is more widely presented in an album by Joanna Pollakówna (Czapski, Warsaw 1993).