Stanislaw Fijalkowski

(Hardback)

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A complete monograph devoted to the Polish master of abstract painting, whose compositions play with minimalist forms and colour

Stanisaw Fijakowski (1922-2020) boasts a direct connection to the very origins of the European avant-garde - he was an assistant of Wladyslaw Strzeminski, who in turn had studied under Kazimir Malevich.

Throughout six decades Fijakowski maintained a solely unique idiom of mystical painting, hovering between the abstract and the representational. He also explored the subject theoretically and translated into Polish several important texts, including Wassily Kandinsky's On the Spiritual in Art.

Fijakowski was also an accomplished engraver, with prints in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, New York and Tate Britain. Even when simplified to black and white his compositions still manage to convey an aura of meditative mystery. The artist had significant international presence in his lifetime - he represented Poland at the So Paulo and Venice biennales, lectured in Belgium and Germany, served as Vice-President of the International Society of Wood Engravers XYLON in Winterthur, Switzerland.

This comprehensive monograph is a rare opportunity for the international audience to rediscover an artistic vision of such scope and magnitude. "Longevity allows Fijakowski to trump the logic of 'isms'," as critic Mark Sadler pointed out in his Frieze review of a 2016 exhibition.

Author Bio

Christina Lodder, honorary fellow in the History of Art at the University of York and president of the Malevich Society, has published extensively on Russian art of the early twentieth century. She has contributed enormously to western understanding of the development of Russian modernism.

Marta Smolinska is a Polish art historian and critic, exhibition curator, university lecturer, full professor. She has worked as assistant professor of history of modern art at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun. Since 2014 she has been a professor of history of contemporary art and curatorial studies at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts in Poznan.

Post Brothers is a critical enterprise that includes Matthew Post, an enthusiast, word processor, educator, and (co)dependent curator often engaged in artist-oriented projects or occupying the secondary information surrounding cultural production.