Dimensions: 128 x 87.5 cm
signed, dated and described on the reverse: 'WOJCIECH FANGOR BLACK 4 | 1959'
on the reverse, mounting note and paper sticker from Gres Gallery and The Museum of Modern Art in New York
Origin
Gres Gallery, Washington, United States
Collection of Albert and Vera List, New York, United States
Sotheby's, New York, United States
private collection, Poland
DESA Unicum, 2016
private collection, Warsaw
Exhibited
"15 Polish Painters," Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1961 (later Pittsburg, Carnegie Institute, 1961; Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1961; St. Louis, Washington University, 1961; Utica Munson, William Proctor Institute, 1962; Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts, 1962; Ottawa, The National Gallery of Canada, 1962).
Wojciech Fangor. Space as a Game, National Museum in Cracow, Cracow, 20.10.2012-20.01.2013
Literature
15 Polish Painters, exhibition catalog, Museum of Modern Art, New York 1961, p. 20 (ill.), p. 58, cat. no. 12.
Fangor. Color and Space, [ed.] Magdalena Dabrowski, Milan 2018, p. 54 (ill.), cat. pos. 34 pp. 216
Biography
During the occupation he studied privately with Tadeusz Pruszkowski and Felicjan Szczęsny Kowarski. He received his diploma from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in 1946. For the Youth and Students Festival in Warsaw, he designed an open-air spatial decoration together with Henryk Tomaszewski. From then on, the painting works were realized in relation to the space outside the painting - as in the famous "Study of Space" from 1958, preceding the worldwide realization of environments. The painting installations of the 1950s and 1960s, composed of colorful contrasting circles and waves, touched on optical problems and were close to op-art. The culmination of this period was a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (1970). He taught at universities in England and the US. His works are in major collections around the world.
