Jerzy Tchórzewski (1929-1999), PEJZAŻ II, 1963.

gouache/paper, 67 x 96 cm
signed p.d.: Tchórzewski 63
signed, dated and described on the back on the plate: arrow HAUT | J Tchórzewski | PAYSAGE II | 67 x 69 cm | plate and sticker of Sosnowiec Art Center

EXHIBITED:
- Jerzy Tchórzewski. Mistrzowie Polskiego Malarstwa Współczesnego, Art & Business Club, Poznań 2001.

LITERATURE:
- Jerzy Tchórzewski. Masters of Polish Contemporary Painting, Art & Business Club, Poznań 2001, il. 30, p. 57.

Tchórzewski studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow from 1946 to 1951. Since 1954 he has been associated as a teacher with the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He was a co-founder in 1957 and a member of the Cracow Group. Since 1959, he belonged to the PHASE movement, bringing together representatives of surrealist tendencies in art. The artist experimented with the medium of painting, achieving rich textures and shiny canvas surfaces. In 1963, Andrzej Osęka wrote that Tchórzewski "invented [...] for his own use, independently of other such experiments in European painting, certain procedures that were actually already 'Tascist'. [...] In the course of years, the representational motifs will disappear from Tchórzewski's paintings [...], the matter will remain - it will be arranged in enigmatic and at the same time piercing figures, signs" (A. Osęka, However, a Romantic, "Polska" 1963, no. 3, p. 45).

The presented landscape evokes associations with the world of organic microforms. The richness of texture makes one connect the painting with matter painting. The internal homogeneity of the composition, the lack of tension, resemble the all over method. Looking at the painting, we don't quite know whether what we see is the texture - half surreal, half abstract - of the landscape, or the landscape of the painting's texture. In this respect, Tchórzewski's work is reminiscent of the texture experiments in Max Ernst's Surrealist landscapes.