Tadeusz Dominik

Tadeusz Dominik (1928, Szymanów - 2014, Warsaw) was a painter and graphic artist who also worked in artistic textile, ceramics and, in later years, computer graphics. In 1946-1951 he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, and defended his diploma in 1953 in the studio of Professor Jan Cybis, whose assistant he then became. He linked his whole career with his alma mater - he passed through all its ranks up to the title of full professor (1988) and was twice dean of the Faculty of Painting; in 1965 he took over his own studio, and in 1990 he retired.

During his studies he was influenced - through the personality and art of Cybis - by the ideas of Polish Colourism, which he developed, however, creatively and independently. „The time came when, after my studies, I began to liberate myself”, he recalled; when he showed the master his new paintings, the latter replied: „I do not understand them, but I believe in your talent”. And so Dominik went his own way.

His unchanging inspiration remained nature - fields, trees, flowers, rivers, clouds. The starting point of his abstraction was always the landscape, which he simplified in his imagination and translated into a language of derealised patches of colour, often constructing compositions from his characteristic, round patches of colour. From the expressive, spontaneous Informel of the second half of the 1950s, through the textural effects of the 1960s, his painting gradually grew brighter and smoother, gaining decorative, rhythmic „rasters”. An important feature of this art was musicality - it was said that Dominik „paints scores with precisely calculated beats of colour and form”.

He made his foreign debut at the 28th Venice Biennale (1956), presenting the woodcut cycle „Motherhood”; a year earlier, at the Exhibition of Young Art at the Arsenał in Warsaw (1955), he received the Second Prize, and in 1957 his first solo exhibition was held at the Zachęta in Warsaw. He was the first laureate in history of the Jan Cybis Award (1973); he also won the laurel of „Złote Grono” in Zielona Góra (1963), the Grand Prix of the Festival of Contemporary Polish Painting in Szczecin (1968) and the George Rowney Award in London (1973), and was a scholar of the Ford Foundation. His works are in museum and private collections in Poland and abroad - including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Albertina in Vienna and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. „A career optimist in painting”, as he said of himself, Dominik appears from today's perspective as one of the most outstanding post-war colourists - a student who matched his master.