Henryk Stazewski

PL • 1894-1988

Henry Stazewski (1894-1988 Warsaw) The Polish artist Henry Stazewski was a leading figure in the Polish avant-garde art of the 1920s and 30s and an important representative of Constructivism. He was a co-founder of the geometric-abstract art movement of the 1960s, 70s and 80s; Relief creator, interior-, set- and poster-designer. Stazewski studied painting at the College of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1913-1919. In the following years he participated in important exhibitions that initiated the constructivist movement in Poland. In 1924 he co-founded the Polish avant-garde group "BLOK" - a group of Cubists, Constructivists and Suprematists (1924-1926) and later other collectives who built on the "BLOK" program. From 1924 onwards he traveled regularly to Paris, where he developed a close friendship with Piet Mondrian and Michel Seuphor. From 1927 followed constant stays in Paris and also a collaboration with Mondrian. Stazewski contributed significantly to the history of the avant-garde through his artistic activities as well as his theoretical writings and essays. 1929 he became a member of the group "Cercle et Carré" and 1931 of the group "Abstraction-Création" in Paris. The artist participated in numerous international exhibitions and was among the positions that were presented to the public in 1931 in the international collection of Modern Art in the Museum of Art in Łódź. Stazewski had his first solo exhibition in Warsaw in 1933. Unfortunately, almost all of the artworks he produced before 1939 were destroyed during the Second World War. Stazewski had his first solo exhibition after the war in 1955 in the Warsaw Association of Writers Club. In 1965 he founded together with Wieslaw Borowski, Anka Ptaszkowa and Mariusz Tschorek the gallery Foksal for radical contemporary art. In the years that followed, his works have been shown at numerous national and international exhibitions, including the Musée d'Art Moderne and the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Brussels, Geneva, Zurich, Hamburg, Berlin, Los Angeles and many more. A retrospective of Stazewski's oeuvre was organized in 1994 at the Art Museum in Łódź. The artist was honored at the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966 and awarded the 1972 Gottfried von Herder Prize by the University of Vienna. Source: Henryk Stazewski, 9.01.1894 - 10.06.1988, Irena Kossowska, Art Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, December 2001.