Untitled

Non-objective art, as Stefan Gierowski himself called his work, is in his interpretation based on the action of colour, which is to act directly on the viewer. From the 1950s the artist has created a series of numbered paintings made on canvas; the first of them arose in 1957. A separate phenomenon, equally important for Stefan Gierowski, are the works made on paper, watercolours. The painter does not treat them as sketches for oil paintings. They are separate entities in his creative explorations. Where does this 'sentiment' for water-based paints come from? From their transparency, luminosity and the possibility of achieving a finer gradation of colour tones, so essential in art founded on the action of colour. Nor can one deny them a greater spontaneity and joy of creation compared with the meticulously worked-out canvases. In 2016, almost simultaneously, three exhibitions presenting Stefan Gierowski's works on paper were held, accompanied by a publication documenting and describing the exhibitions, titled „Watercolours”, by Małgorzata Mach, containing a personal essay by Professor Stanisław Tabisz, rector of the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts. The offered watercolour probably dates from the 1970s, when Stefan Gierowski painted horizontal or vertical bands of rectangles, applying a colour gradation within them or in the border, thereby creating an optical illusion of bending, of relief, of vibration. (compiled on the basis of: www.mocak.pl, fundacjagierowskiego.pl, nck.krakow.pl, culture.pl, Bożena Kowalska, Polska awangarda malarska. Szanse i mity 1945-1980, Warsaw 1988) The work of this master of the avant-garde enjoys unflagging popularity among collectors. The artist's oil works, extremely rare on the market, have in recent years reached record sums. The painting CCCX from 1973 (200 x 110 cm) was sold in September 2021 at DESA Unicum for 360,000 zlotys (excluding the auction premium). Gierowski's works on paper began to enjoy great interest. At the auction on 14 September at DESA Unicum his watercolour on paper from 2004 (75 x 52 cm) found a buyer for 38,000 zlotys (excluding the auction premium). „Light is the content of painting; it determines its uniqueness and the secret of the craft of the great masters. But light also has a symbolic meaning - one that has accompanied humanity since the dawn of the ages.” (quoted after: Stefan Gierowski, Jeżeli malarstwo jest jakimś pismem..., in: Licht, Raum, Zahl, Polnische Avantgarde, Kunsthaus Nürnberg, 2000).