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ART DECO -- POLAND
Polish Musem of America Part I On April 30, 1939, the New York World's Fair set out to showcase the 'World of Tomorrow.' At the Polish Pavilion, over 11,000 artifacts of Polish art went on display -- much of it Art Deco. At the 1925 "L'Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes," held in Paris, "The high appraisal of the Polish Art Deco was reflected in the fact that Poles won the greatest number of prizes and positive opinions by the international critics who acknowledged the style-creating and national character of the Polish presentation." (Art critic Anna Sieradzka). Many of those same artists offered the culmination of their development at the New York fair in 1939. It was to be a final flowering. On September 1, 1939, Nazi divisions invaded Poland and Nazi bombers began the almost total destruction of that nation's centuries-old capital. It was the beginning of the end of dreams for a benevolent future... World War II had begun.
The Polish Museum of America, Chicago, became the permanent steward of much of the art which could not return to a homeland at war, and which would soon see its museums and galleries looted and destroyed. The museum's current exhibition, "Art Deco -- Poland," now offers visitors the chance to view an impressive sampling of that work in a show that runs until March 5, 2000. "Art Deco -- Poland" brings together posters, graphics, sculpture and decorative metalwork representing the various currents that formed and constitute Art Deco. So much is the history. But the art is paramount. Art Deco received its name from the 1925 French exposition, but a definition is still much debated. Polish critic Anna Sieradzka, distinguished at least three waves: a precursory "Glasgow School" with Charles Rennie Mackintosh; the Parisian 'High' Art Deco, fusing Classicist legacies with exoticism, often by way of Fauvism; and a culminating 'Modernist' wave, which, in the 20s and 30s, was influenced by Cubism and Abstractionism (ART DECO w Europie i w Polsce: 1996). Certainly critic Alastair Duncan noted that the varied and often conflicting influences on Art Deco "were primarily from the world of avant-garde painting in the early years of the century." Duncan, while admitting earlier and exotic influences, notes: "Elements from Cubism, Russian Constructivism and Italian Futurism -- abstraction, distortion and simplification -- are readily evident in the decorative arts vernacular used by most Art Deco exponents." (Art Deco: Thames and Hudson: 1988). Ultimately, Art Deco was not a movement, but an intent. The Encyclopedia of Art Deco (E.P.Dutton: 1988) quotes designer, Paul Follot, who said in 1928: "We know that the 'necessary' alone is not sufficient for man and that the superfluous is indispensable for him... or otherwise let us also suppress music, flowers, perfumes... and the smiles of ladies!" "Art Deco -- Poland" offers much of 'High' Art Deco; it also clearly delineates the 'waves' and varied expressions of that Art Decoratif; and lastly, this exhibition sheds light on the influence of national and folk traditions -- those of Central and Eastern Europe qualifying as a continental 'exoticism' -- in Art Deco expression. In the new color palettes and stylizations of this decorative expression, a visitor discerns fine and applied art moving in tandem and a growing cosmopolitanism, even where a strong national style contributes. (It is instructive to note the date of a work and surmise the fine art trends most fashionable among the emerging artists' circles of the time.) "Art Deco -- Poland" is essentially presented in three display areas. On the right exhibition walls as one enters the museum's gallery are a large selection of Art Deco's most striking, memorable -- and physically ephemeral -- achievements: the posters. Museum Director Jan Lorys has noted that the current showing was limited by space; many dozens more Polish Art Deco posters lie in storage.
On the whole, the selection of posters comes from the 1920s and 30s, when the movement had consolidated and reached its peak, but "Art Deco -- Poland" does offer a range full enough to include several strains of expression. Set Aside 3 Days For A Capital Visit (26.75x18.88 in.: n.d.) by Stanislaw Chrostowski is an exemplary expression of the geometric stylization which casual Art Deco lovers have come to identify as 'true' Art Deco. The color scheme is in fact subtle; it is their juxtaposition and the general composition which create an illusion of liveliness and pleasurable excitement. The predominance of salmon pinks and oxblood hues became again popular with America's 'Miami Deco' and the 1970s' Neo-Deco revival. In the early 1930s it was still very new. The Encyclopedia of Art Deco (E.P.Dutton:1988) notes that, with the 1920s, "Vivid, sometimes discordant, shades of lavender (Lanvin blue), orange-red (tango) and hot pink, were juxtaposed with lime greens and chrome yellows to generate a psychedelic palette rivaling that of the 1960s." And in much of this exhibition, the viewer is reminded that a new palette had come into acceptance, a fact even more evident in the works of the national and folkloristic camps. "Art Deco -- Poland" offers prints and woodcuts by Stanislaw Chrostowski as well as posters and applied work. Chrostowski, and others, exemplify the increased catholicity of media and genres which took hold in the late 19th and 20th centuries, and which flourished in the Art Deco movement. Artists were no longer pigeon-holed as oil painters or printmakers, fine or applied -- they crossed media and styles to suit their intents. And, as with other artists in the show, each displayed an individuality while crossing media and applications. The world, in art as well as politics, had become ever more restless. Restless need not mean morose or militant, as exemplified by the poster of Gothelf Knothe-Niedbalski, The XIII Ball -- Warsaw For Its Polytechnical (41.75x30.38 in.: 1933). The full-dress balls thrown for Warsaw's polytechnic were a major social event of the season and their support, as this poster shows, attracted prime talents. Poster art such as Knothe-Niedbalski's, or Tadeusz Piotrowski's Exposition Polonaise, printed by B. Wierzbicki of Warsaw, easily rival the work of artists such as Rene Magritte, Paul Masseu, Edward McKnight Kauffer, Guy Georget and Georges Lepape. The posters and graphic art in "Art Deco -- Poland" lead a viewer to regret only that funds were not available for a color catalogue. Many of the posters on display tend toward the late developments -- the now familiar Cubist-influenced Euclideanism and Machine Age simplification of form (but there are numerous examples of other trends). A poster such as Eugeniusz Szparkowski's Gdynia-America [Ocean Lines Inc.] (39.38x27.5 in.: 1935) or The Polish Railwayman's Day - Stanislawow (36.88x26.75 in.: 1934) by Tadeusz Trapkowski can rival the best of that Ukrainian-born 'Parisian,' Adolphe Mauron Cassandre. Szparkowski's work idealizes the sleek, technical spirit that so many hoped would redeem future tomorrows and represents the Art Deco tendency to accept, even embrace the Machine Age, where earlier artists rejected and resisted it.
The exhibition does feature variety: there are several examples of earlier, transitional Art Deco poster art, as well as posters where the essentially cosmopolitan style serves the national cause, understandable in a nation which had just ended 150 years of suppression. 100th Anniversary of the National Insurrection: 1830-1930 (36.13x26.5 in.: 1930) by Stanislaw Luckiewicz is a case in point. In this poster, cannon barrels are crossed into a central "V," above which a stylized Eagle, a traditional symbol of the Polish nation, is centered in a somewhat Art Deco heraldry. Of equally great interest are posters such as the untitled work of 1933 by one G. Surallo. Surallo's Untitled (39.76x23.6 in.) is without text and portrays a skier in the Polish mountains, but it is rendered with an airbrush-like technique, which, for the time, was, and remains, an eye-catching experiment. The central display area of "Art Deco -- Poland" offers some of the finest items of the exhibition, and, indeed, what stands as first class Art Deco metalwork anywhere. The Sieradzka volume, which contains a summary in English, presents a number of illustrations of Henryk Grunwald's premier metalwork, but the items here, from the Polish Museum of America's collections, are first-rate. The right and left display areas are spanned by two wrought iron gratings -- barricade sections which hold cloth standards or flag banners (also designed by Grunwald). The gratings measure 48 3/8 by 47 1/4 inches and, building upon an almost late medieval inspiration, display the decorative spirit of the age, a delightful sense of whimsy -- they are Art Deco at its finest. At the center of the barricade railings is Grunwald's companion candlestick (118.13x26.38x41.75 inches). A stylized canine forms the base of the candlestick, and, typical of Grunwald's whimsical affirmation of life, the curlicue tail mirrors a counterpoised, but equally curlicue and distinctly male 'ornament.' The artist's wit rivals the gargoyles of Notre Dame. That Notre Dame should come to mind, and in the context of Art Deco, is perhaps surprising, but no accident. "Art Deco -- Poland" displays still another Grunwald item, and it is truly impressive. Grunwald, who was born in 1904 and died in 1958, worked almost exclusively in metal and, fortunately, a number of his fine pieces in Poland survived the Second World War, but the Polish Museum collections in Chicago hold what for a number of years proved an enigma. The curator of this exhibition, Krystyna Nowakowska, herself a specialist in Polish Art Deco, has noted that current research indicates that the work in bronze, brass and iron may well be a baptismal font. The large urn bears the signs of the four Evangelists and, when not in use, is covered by an impressively crafted grating. It brings to mind the inspirations of the English sculptor, book illustrator and letter designer, Eric Gill, who combined a deep religious sense with a keen sense for clean, direct stylization in his art. It is Grunwald's aspirations toward a spiritual Deco which led to his disfavor with the Communist authorities after the World War. Sieradzka noted this metalworker's inspirational sources in folk art as well as his "rhythmical, synthetic form, integral ensembling of means of expression with material and technique." It is impressive Art Deco metalwork.
Also in the central display area of "Art Deco -- Poland" are five metal sculptures, very representative of 'High' Art Deco. At far left is Archer (12x14.13x6 in.: Bronze) by Kazimierz Pietkiewicz (1903-1965), and at the far right, another Archer (11.38x9x3.13 in.: Bronze) by Stanislaw Sikora. The archer has been a favorite theme for Art Deco; it allows both decorative grace, and an opportunity to treat muscle in tension with calm poise, and both works here are finely executed and representative of the genre. The other pieces are Torso of a Girl (31.5x11.75x11.75 in.: 1934: Bronze) by Stanislaw Rzeczki (1884-1972); Stanislaw Poplawski After The Bath (35.38x15"x8.63 in.: Bronze); and Magdelen (26.38x10.25x11.75 in.: Bronze) by Franciszek Strynkiewicz (1893-). The central sculptures are more serene and contemplative than their French counterparts, although they share affinities with the work of such familiar Art Deco artists as Hungarian-born Josef Csaky, Joseph Cormier or Marcel Bouraine. European Art Deco is sometimes viewed as two distinct modes within its own conventions: the earlier 'lyricists' with their links to the Fauves and earlier traditions; and the 'geometricists,' who drew much from Cubism and more Abstractionist tendencies. Representative of the lyricist mode in "Art Deco -- Poland" are five canvases by Irena Pokrzywnicka (1897-1975), who signed her work as "Irpo." The oils on canvas constitute a series entitled "The Four Seasons." Like the work of Marie Laurencin, or Moise Kisling, a Polish emigre who made his career in Paris, Pokrzywnicka's paintings exhibit qualities which lend themselves to applied art. Indeed, the central Pokrzywnicka oil in this exhibit, Summer, was reproduced as an illustration in a 1924 issue of the periodical "Pani" ("Madame"). Noting the artists work for posters, lithographed dustjackets and illustrations, critic Anna Sieradzka cited "their subtle coloristics, the delicate line building classicizing, lightly geometricized feminine forms in picturesque, historical dress, linked to the air of the French Roccoco and the drawings of French illustrators of Art Deco -- [Georges] Lepape or [Paul] Iribe."
Finis Part I --G. Jurek Polanski Jurek Polanski has previously written and art edited for Strong Coffee in Chicago. He's also well known and respected among the Chicago museums and galleries. Jurek is currently a Visual Arts Correspondent for ArtScope.net. |
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