Waclaw Borowski, Harvest of Fruits. EVENING. ETERNITY, ca. 1927

65,0 x 49,5cm - pastel, pencil, pastel paper fixed

sign. l.d.: W. Borowski

p.d. sign of the paper manufacturer: VANGTON



Waclaw Borowski, co-founder and president of the Rhythm Association, is considered one of the leading representatives of the new classicism of Polish art between the wars. These artists, breaking with Impressionism and Art Nouveau, sought to create a new canon of national art. The basis of Borowski's work is the art of antiquity and the early Renaissance. His paintings are characterized by synthetic, rhythm-based, subtly modeled compact forms and muted, pastel colors. Idyllic scenes, showing figures, most often in the landscape, dressed in antique robes, have a symbolic and existential meaning, and concern the relationship between man and nature. Borowski had an excellent painting technique: he created frescoes, used watercolor, gouache and pastel - as exemplified by the offered work. The artist also practiced color and black-and-white lithography. Hence Autumn - is known primarily as a printmaker. The color lithograph, which differs in small details, was published in the Second Portfolio of Autolithography in 1927. It was exhibited at the General National Exhibition in Poznan in 1929. Pieces of it are in the collections of the National Museum in Warsaw, the Art Museum in Lodz and the Ossolineum, among others. Both graphics and paintings by Waclaw Borowski, one of the most outstanding Polish painters of the first half of the 20th century, are a great rarity on the art market today, so the offered pastel must be considered an exceptional collector's rarity.



Selected literature:

- Catalog of the Art Department. General National Exhibition, Poznań 1929, cat. no. 2183;

- Władysław Terlecki, Wacław Borowski, "Sztuki Piękne" 1932, VIII, no. 4, p. 118;

- Maria Grońska, Graphics in a book, portfolio and album: Polish artistic and bibliophilic publications from 1899-1945, Ossoliński National Institute, Wrocław 1994, item 82;

- Association of Polish Artists Rhythm: 1922-1932 [exhibition catalog], exhibition and catalog concept by Katarzyna Nowakowska-Sito, 11 June - 29 July 2001, National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw 2001, cat. no. 36 [color lithograph].

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

Waclaw Borowski (Lodz 1885 - Lodz 1954) - painter, graphic artist, stage designer - studied painting under Józef Mehoffer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow in 1905-1909 and, in parallel, art history at the Jagiellonian University. From 1909 to 1913 he stayed in Paris. Fascinated by old painting, he copied many paintings in museums. In the period 1911-1914, he traveled to Italy, studying Renaissance art. He spent the years 1914-1919 in Switzerland. After returning to Poland, he lived in Warsaw, where he was a professor of painting and composition at the Institute of Visual Arts from 1927 to 1933. Active in many fields, he was active in easel painting, decorative wall painting (including polychromes at the Royal Castle, the Old Town Square in Warsaw), printmaking (three portfolios of lithographs), designing posters, book illustrations and stage designs for the theaters of Warsaw, Krakow and Lodz. He was co-founder and president of the "Rhythm" group, a member of the Association of Graphic Artists "Rhythm", and belonged to the Society of Polish Artists "Art". He exhibited a lot both at home and abroad, and his works were repeatedly awarded medals and prizes. Borowski's work belongs to the "classicizing" current of Polish painting, associated, among others, with artists gathered around the "Rhythm" group. His paintings are distinguished by both the striving for synthesis and a kind of simplification and even a certain geometrization of forms, as well as the softness and statics of compositional systems, based on the rhythm of movement, lines and planes. The impression of silence, order and harmony is sustained by soft light and subtle pastel colors that co-create a lyrical mood of serene melancholy.