Exhibition: Zofia Stryjeńska – Dances, Costumes and Toys
Exhibition opening
Zofia Stryjeńska
Dances, Costumes and Toys – ‘There only colour can still be found there’ / Zofia Stryjeńska – selected works.
The opening will take place on 1 December 2022, at 6 p.m.
at Gardzienice Gallery, 5a Grodzka Street, Lublin.
Curator of the exhibition: Zuzanna Zubek-Gańska
Arrangement of light: Włodzimierz Janowski
Co-organised by: the State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw and the S. Udziela Ethnographic Museum in Krakow.
Works from the collections of: The State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw and the S. Udziela Ethnographic Museum in Krakow.
Admission to the vernissage and the exhibition is free. The attendance at the vernissage does not require prior reservation.
The vernissage has an open form.
The exhibition will run until 30 December 2022.
“Our life is terribly grey. Even the taxis in the city are grey. Your clothes, you unfortunate men, are a travesty of colour. Grey, grey, grey! In this grey world of the city and civilisation, the painter cannot find the colour he so needs and so seeks, like the musician for melody. One has to go to the countryside for colour, because the countries where this colour is still abundant, so exotic, this world headquarters of colour, are unfortunately too far away and inaccessible to us.” / Zofia Stryjeńska
An exhibition of Zofia Stryjeńska’s work is quite a challenge, especially when we aim to present the artist’s art in a different way than before. What we want to explore is what was important to her, where she saw opportunities to create a more up-to-date style, but based on native motifs, traditions, rituals. What is more, we also want to present the rich colouring that has always accompanied folk art. Colour emphasised the essence and power of expression, spoke of what was right, what was necessarily good and what was bad.
Our exhibition is a prelude to colour; colour is present in each of the artist’s works, to a greater or lesser extent. It undeniably rules the space and heightens the expressions. The rooms are filled with wooden toys of a traditional character, placed on cubicles. They captivate with their design and ingenuity. And it is to these toys that we would largely like to draw the viewers’ attention, as their phenomenon is considerable. They were made at the Cracow Workshops[2] located in the Technical and Industrial Museum at 9 Smoleńsk Street[3], where the trend towards folk art was strongly developing at the time. New art, strongly integrated with folklore, was born. The artist’s kingdom is her studio, where she creates toy models inspired by Poland’s native culture and folklore. Exuberant colours, intense, pulsating, strong, chess, blocks, assorted, lajkoniks, Sabalas, dragons. The toys, which have escaped time, are inscribed in our cultural context, alluding to legends and fairy tales, children’s stories. There is Pan Twardowski, Sabała, a peacock, a goose with a spring-loaded neck, a woodpecker, a swallow accompanied by a spring leg, and a heron with a long neck. They carry a folk aesthetic and a wry element, as well as a feisty nature, characteristic of Zofia Stryjeńska.
The Seweryn Udziela Ethnographical Museum in Krakow, which lent exhibits based on Zofia Stryjeńska’s designs for the toy exhibitions, has a collection of toys from the Krakow Workshops, where they were created as prototypes designed by visual artists. The toys they created referred in content, form and decoration to Polish folklore, particularly that of Kraków. They were based on traditional techniques that were identical to folk culture, and were manufactured according to the guidelines that were valid for it.
Today, the “Emmaus birds” and toys that used to be available for purchase in the cloth shops have been closed under a curtain of glass. Caught in the light, they gaze at us enticingly with the patterns they bear. Fancy, fairy-tale-like, they steal our attention and transport us into a world of imagination, not only a child’s but also hers, Zosia’s.
From Mr Twardowski, humming oj oj dana, we move smoothly to “Polish Dances”, colourful rotogravures from 1929, a separate chapter of this exhibition.
“Kujawiak”, “Kołomyjka”, “Polonaise”, “Zbójnicki”, “Oberek”, “Mazur” are just some of the colour rotogravures from the “Polish Dances” portfolio. Created in 1927, they were not published until 1929 by the Drukarnia Narodowa. The portfolio consists of 11 rotogravures. Those in the Gallery came courtesy of the State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw, as did the ‘Folk Costumes’. This unusual collection from 1939 comprises as many as 40 essential, bar charts painted with gouache and stencils. It is also a complete record of folk costumes in which we find regional patterns from all over Poland. Also included in the context of folk costume are two works created by Zofia Stryjeńska in gouache. The unique paintings show folk costumes from the Pinsk region, both female and male. Strongly coloured details work together to create a thoughtful whole. The excellent details underline the excellent technique of the artist. And this, as we know, was unique, one of a kind.
Zuzanna Zubek-Gańska
Zofia Stryjeńska, née Lubańska, born 13 May 1891 in Krakow, died 28 February 1976. Painter, graphic artist, illustrator and stage designer.
From childhood she drew and painted a lot. As a young girl she became a collaborator of illustrated magazines (“Rola” and “Głos Ludu”). She was educated at the School of Fine Arts for Women by Maria Niedzielska, which operated in Kraków. She studied painting and applied arts there from 1909 to 1911. In her youth she travelled to Italy. In order to be able to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, she decided to assume the identity of a man. She pretended to be Tadeusz Grzymała Lubański. A year later she was unmasked and returned to Krakow. Thanks to the support of the art critic Jerzy Warchałowski, she became recognisable and respected in the world of artists. After marrying Karol Stryjeński, Zofia became acquainted with eminent representatives from the world of literature, including Reymont, Witkacy and Żeromski.
Following Karol Stryjeński’s professional career, the couple moved to Zakopane. There, Stryjeński worked as the director of the State School of Wood Industry. Zofia, in turn, worked as an artist. After her divorce, which took place in 1927, she moved to Warsaw. There, two years later, she married Artur Socha. The man of her dreams was an actor. The crisis in their relationship came with economic problems. Eventually, Zofia decided to divorce. She spent the war in Kraków. It was not until 1945 that she left for Switzerland. There she settled down with her children. All the time, however, she planned to leave Poland for the USA. While in exile, she missed Poland and its culture. She lived a very modest life. She was a member of the Rhythm group. She painted in watercolours and gouaches and drew scenes of Polish rituals, legends and customs, religious compositions and historical figures, drawing extensively on folk folklore and succumbing to her fascination with pre-Slavic culture. In her work, she used wide planes of intense colours, defining shapes with contours and a wealth of motifs and ornamental ideas. She brilliantly combined a propensity for decorative stylisation with compositional flair and imagination. Moreover, Stryjeńska practised mural painting, scenography, lithography and illustration.
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