caziel: "je suis abstrait", works from the fifties

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“JE SUIS ABSTRAIT”

Works from the Fifties

8th – 31st October 2008

6 DUKE STREET ST. JAMES’S LONDON SW1Y 6BNTEL. +44 (0)20 7930 9332 EMAIL [email protected]


All Works are for Sale

Above: Caziel (Kazimierz Jozef Zielenkiewicz) with Picasso, Paris, 1951Front cover: Geometric Composition, c.1955 (cat. no. 36)

Paris – 1952

When the legendary Cubist art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler assumed Caziel’s abstract work to

be an experiment from which he would return to figuration, Caziel insisted ‘Non, je suis abstrait’.

Kahnweiler’s wish to include Caziel in his stable of figurative artists headed by Picasso, occured

at a time when Caziel had turned to Abstraction, ensued by the exciting developments of the

movement following the end of the Second World War.

In October 1944 the Galerie Berri-Raspail hosted an exhibition bringing together the work of the

pioneers of Abstraction Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Condemned by the Nazis as

‘degenerate’, Abstraction became the obvious course to run the rehabilitation of modern art. The

prevailing tendency was that of geometrical abstraction but artists experimented in different

directions, including ‘abstraction gestuel’ and ‘abstraction matière’. The foundation of the Salon

des Surindépendants in 1945 and the Salon des Réalites nouvelles in 1946-47, sought to unite the

heterogeneous abstract developments articulated in the work of Jean-Michel Atlan, Hans

Hartung, Yves Klein, Georges Mathieu, Joan Miró, Serge Poliakoff, Pierre Soulages and Victor

Vasarely.

In 1952 a group of young artists who had come to non-figuration around 1950, established the

Salon d’Octobre. Headed by Charles Estienne, and supported by Galerie Maeght they aimed to

rival the Salon des Réalites nouvelles. In his preface to the 1950 edition of ‘Les Mains éblouis’

exhibition at Galerie Maeght, Michel Seuphor defined the style of this group as a synthesis of

Expressionism, Surrealism and Abstraction. Its members, including Pierre Alechinsky, Corneille,

Huguette Bertrand, Jacques Doucet and Serge Rezvani dissociated from Picasso to favour the

lyricism of Klee, Kandinsky and Miró.

CAZIEL: ‘Je suis abstrait’

Work from the Fifties

Although Caziel never officially exhibited with the lyrical abstractionists, his personal

development mirrors that of the ‘Mains éblouis’ group. Caziel’s friendship with Picasso, with

whom he shared a studio for five years after the Second World War, remained close, but his

search for a fourth dimension heralds the end of Picasso’s influence and the beginning of his

experiments with the ideas of Kandinsky and Miró of transcending the second and third

dimension. Caziel’s expression of the fourth dimension resulted in paintings of superimposed

biomorphic shapes and lines in different strong colours against a black or a white background.

These works reverberate light, space and rhythm in order to create a sensation similar to

emotions engendered by music.

Caziel’s annual submissions to the Salon de Mai, 1948-1956, where his work was shown alongside

Vasarely, Hartung and Manessier, demonstrated his dedication to the Abstract cause. Official

recognition of his abstract work came in 1951, when the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris,

purchased a monumental work. In 1953, The Vatican Museum commissioned a suite of four large

paintings. In London his abstract work was the subject of two one-man shows, 1966 and 1968, at

the Grabowski gallery.

This exhibition reveals Caziel’s early abstract work. It includes his first abstract paintings, which

combine a Cubist-influenced aesthetic and geometric decomposition, alongside his mature

abstract style in which lyricism and geometrical abstraction merge. With these works Caziel

believed that, as possibly Picasso and Braque did when they invented Cubism, he was reaching

for a higher order of reality, a new perspective, which hinted at the spiritual.

A highly personal expression of his epicurean belief that painting should bring joy, Caziel’s work

of the 1950s figures within the upbeat current which defined Paris’ cultural identity in the

aftermath of the Second World War.

An Jo Fermon, June 2008

1. Composition 11.52 1952

Gouache65 x 50.5 cm

2. Composition 25.08.1956 1956

Oil on canvas162 x 138 cm

EXHIBITED: 1966, Grabwoski Gallery, London1992, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol1998, Caziel 1906-1988, Retrospective Exhibition, National Museum, Warsaw 2004, Caziel, The Embassy of the Republic of Poland, London

LITERATURE: J. PERRY, The Grand Play of Light. The Art & Life of Caziel, AM Publications, London, 1997, ill. pl. 45, p. 55.D. MONKIEWICZ, Caziel 1906-1988, Catalogue Raisonné, National Museum, Warsaw, 1998, cat. rais. no. 350, ill. no. 43, p. 99.

3. Composition 1950

Charcoal and watercolour49 x 35.3 cm

4. Abstract Composition c.1949

Oil on canvas62.5 x 40 cm

LITERATURE: D. MONKIEWICZ, Caziel 1906-1988, Catalogue Raisonné, National Museum, Warsaw, 1998, cat. rais. no. 212.

5. Composition 3.3.56 1956



6. Composition c.1950

Gouache46 x 33.5 cm

8. Composition “Cobra” c.1949



7. Composition #17 c.1949


EXHIBITED: 1997, Caziel, Works from the Fifties, Whitford Fine Art, London, cat. no.17


10. Composition 49.XI.30 1949

Gouache and pencil48 x 62.5 cm

11. Composition #41 1952

Gouache55 x 76 cm

EXHIBITED: 1997, Caziel, Works from the Fifties, Whitford Fine Art, London, cat. no. 41

12. Organic Forms c.1950


EXHIBITED: 1998, Caziel 1906-1988, Retrospective Exhibition, National Museum, Warsaw 2004, Caziel, The Embassy of the Republic of Poland, London

LITERATURE: D. MONKIEWICZ, Caziel 1906-1988, Catalogue Raisonné, National Museum, Warsaw, 1998, cat. rais. no. 235, ill. no. 34, p. 93.


Gouache32.5 x 62.5 cm


Gouache15.5 x 49 cm

16. Composition 1950


17. Composition 09.51 1951

Oil on board71.5 x 51 cm



Charcoal and watercolour46.5 x 20 cm

19. Architectonic Composition c.1951



20. Architectonic Composition c.1952


EXHIBITED: 1998, Caziel 1906-1988, Retrospective Exhibition, National Museum, Warsaw

LITERATURE: D. MONKIEWICZ, Caziel 1906-1988, Catalogue Raisonné, National Museum, Warsaw, 1998, cat. rais. no. 296, ill. no. 39, p. 95.


Gouache and charcoal49.5 x 65 cm

22. Composition 15.3.56 1956




Charcoal and watercolour48 x 63 cm


Oil on board31 x 40 cm




Charcoal and gouache41 x 61 cm

28. Composition 56.VII 1956

Charcoal and gouache50 x 65.5 cm

29. Composition 19.May.1955 1955

Oil on canvas73 x 91 cmInscribed "Katika" verso

LITERATURE: D. MONKIEWICZ, Caziel 1906-1988, Catalogue Raisonné, National Museum, Warsaw, 1998, cat. rais. no. 313A.

30. Architectonic Composition 1951



31. Composition 12.8.55 1955


LITERATURE: D. MONKIEWICZ, Caziel 1906-1988, Catalogue Raisonné, National Museum, Warsaw, 1998, cat, rais. no. 321.

32. Architectonic Composition c.1952–3



34. Composition #25 c.1951

Oil on board26.5 x 34.5 cm

EXHIBITED: 1997, Caziel, Works from the Fifties, Whitford Fine Art, London, cat. no. 25

36. Geometric Composition c.1955



37. Composition 11 May 52 1952

Pencil55.5 x 50 cm

38. Cubist Nude Study c.1949



Left: 39. Composition c.1950, Gouache, 62 x 48 cm

1 Composition 11.522 Composition 25.08.19563 Composition4 Abstract Composition5 Composition 3.3.566 Composition7 Composition #178 Composition “Cobra”9 Composition10 Composition 49.XI.3011 Composition #4112 Organic Forms13 Composition14 Composition15 Composition16 Composition17 Composition 09.5118 Composition19 Architectonic Composition20 Architectonic Composition21 Composition22 Composition 15.3.5623 Composition24 Composition25 Composition26 Composition27 Composition28 Composition 56.VII29 Composition 19.May.195530 Architectonic Composition31 Composition 12.8.5532 Architectonic Composition33 Composition34 Composition #2535 Composition36 Geometric Composition37 Composition 11.05.5238 Cubist Nude Study39 Composition40 Composition 11.1949

WORKS

All works are signed or have the Studio stamp

40. Composition 11.1949 1949

Gouache and pencil47 x 62 cm

CHRONOLOGY & EXHIBITIONS

1906 Born in Sosnowiec, Poland, on 16th June

1931-36 Studied painting in Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts

1932 Exhibited at Loza Wolnomalarska (Lodge of Free Painters)

1937 Won a State scholarship to Italy and Paris

1939 Volunteered for the Polish Army in France

1946 Settled in France, Aix-en-Provence, later moved to Paris

Designed the Polish Pavilion for UNESCO International Exhibition of Modern Art

1947 Held one-man show at the Galerie Allard, Paris

1948 Met Picasso with whom he developed a long standing friendship

1948-56 Exhibited at the Salon de Mai in Paris

1951 The Musée National d’Art Moderne purchased one of his monumental canvas works

1953 The Vatican commissioned four large paintings for their Museum of Modern Religious Art

Designed frescoes for French architect Jean Ginsberg

1957 Married the Scottish painter Catherine Sinclair

1963 Exterior design for the Atomic Energy Commission at Tollemache House, Thurso

1966 First one-man in London, hosted by the Grabowski Gallery

Second one-man show at the Grabowski Gallery, London

1966-68 Exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, London

1968 Second one-man show at the Grabowski Gallery, London

1969 Left France to settle in Somerset, England

1978 Exhibited at the National Museum, Warsaw – Circle of Tadeusz Pruszkowski

1983 Exhibited works on paper at the Summer Exhibition at Fair Maids House Gallery, Perth

1988 Died in Somerset

1990 Memorial Exhibition at the Polish Cultural Institute, London

1991 Exhibition at the Butlin Gallery, Dillington House College, Ilminster, Somerset

1992 Exhibition of works from 1945 – 1988 at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol

1995 Exhibition Caziel (1906-1988): Substance and Light at Whitford Fine Art, London

1997 Exhibition Caziel: Drawings from the Fourties at Whitford Fine Art, London

Exhibition Caziel: Works from the Fifties at Whitford Fine Art, London

1998 Retrospective Exhibition at the National Museum, Warsaw

2001 Exhibition Contour and Line: Selection of Works on Paper from 1965 by Caziel at

Whitford Fine Art, London

2004 Exhibition Caziel: Abstraction: 1963 – 1967 at Whitford Fine Art, London

Retrospective Exhibition at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, London

2006 Centenary Retrospective Exhibition at Whitford Fine Art, London

6 DUKE STREET ST. JAMES’SL O N D O N S W 1 Y 6 B NTE L .+4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 7 9 3 0 9 3 3 2FA X .+4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 7 9 3 0 5 5 7 7i n f o@wh i t f o r d f i n e a r t . c omwww. w h i t f o r d f i n e a r t . c om


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caziel: "je suis abstrait", works from the fifties

Documents

w h i t f o r d f i

geometrical abstraction

abstraction gestuel

abstraction matire

jamessl o n d o n s

abstraction wassily

fiftiesalthough caziel

r tall works