Ship, 1949/1950

A certificate from the Nowosielski Foundation is enclosed with the painting. The year 1949, to which Jerzy Nowosielski's watercolour „Ship” is dated, was a historic moment for Polish art. At the turn of 1948/1949 the 1st Exhibition of Modern Art in Kraków was opened and immediately closed by the authorities; Jerzy Nowosielski took part in it alongside, among others, Maria Jarema, Jadwiga Maziarska, Alfred Lenica, Kazimierz Mikulski, Erna Rosenstein, Jerzy Tchórzewski and Andrzej Wróblewski. It was also at this time that the doctrine of Socialist Realism was being born and beginning to be introduced. Avant-garde artists were excluded from the official circle of art. In the 1940s the Group of Young Artists was formed, transformed in the 1950s into the 2nd Kraków Group, whose leader was Tadeusz Kantor and one of whose members was Jerzy Nowosielski. „Ship” by Jerzy Nowosielski is a simplified, slightly geometricised landscape. In the two-dimensional work the artist encloses the three dimensions of the solid of the ship that was an inspiration for him at the time. The artist followed the progress of civilisation and the development of industry with interest, as may be evidenced precisely by the motifs of the ship, the boat, quarries, trams or trains that he used in this period of his work. In paintings on this theme the painter removed the unnecessary staffage, such as the passers-by who ought to want to travel by these means of transport. PROVENANCE: - private collection, Poland - Sopocki Dom Aukcyjny, 24.10.2020 (lot 2) LITERATURE: - Jerzy Nowosielski, Galeria Starmach, Nowosielski Foundation, Zachęta State Gallery of Art, Kraków 2003, p. 72 (ill.), list of works p. 708, no. 97 EXHIBITED: - Jerzy Nowosielski, solo exhibition, Zachęta State Gallery of Art, Warsaw 2003