Wojciech (pronounced: ) Bonawentura Fangor (15 November 1922 – 25 October 2015), also known as Voy Fangor, was a Polish
painter,
graphic artist,
sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
. Described as "one of the most distinctive painters to emerge from postwar Poland," Fangor has been associated with
Op art and
Color field movements and recognized as a key figure in the history of Polish
abstract art.
As a graphic artist, Fangor is known as a co-creator of the influential
Polish School of Posters
Beginning in the 1950s and through the 1980s, the Polish School of Posters combined the aesthetics of painting and the use of metaphor with the succinctness of the poster. By utilizing characteristics such as painterly gesture, linear quality, a ...
. Between 1953 and 1961, he designed over one hundred posters working alongside
Henryk Tomaszewski,
Jan Lenica
Jan Lenica (4 January 1928, Poznań, Poland – 5 October 2001, Berlin) was a Polish graphic designer and cartoonist.
A graduate of the Architecture Department of Warsaw Polytechnic, Lenica became a poster illustrator and a collaborator on the e ...
and others.
After briefly conforming to the style of
Socialist Realism
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is c ...
during the Stalinist regime in Poland, Fangor had moved toward non-objective painting by the late 1950s. Fangor's 1958 exhibition titled ''Studium Przestrzeni'' at Salon Nowej Kultury in Warsaw, organized together with
Stanisław Zamecznik, had sought to create an immersive display space and incorporate Fangor's abstract paintings into the surrounding environment, becoming the foundation for his subsequent experiments with the spatial dimension of color. In 1966, following a period of extensive international travel, Fangor relocated to the United States where he achieved a level of commercial success, critical reception, and direct exposure to American post-war visual culture largely inaccessible to most contemporary artists from the
Eastern Bloc. In 1970, he became the first Polish artist to hold a solo exhibition at the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
in New York.
Fangor returned to Poland in 1999 where he remained active until his death in 2015, although his international recognition had by then diminished. For his contributions to the Polish culture, Fangor was awarded several honors, including the
Order of Polonia Restituta
The Order of Polonia Restituta ( pl, Order Odrodzenia Polski, en, Order of Restored Poland) is a Polish state order established 4 February 1921. It is conferred on both military and civilians as well as on foreigners for outstanding achievement ...
in 2001, the country's second highest civilian order, and the
Gold Medal for Merit to Culture in 2004. His work is included in the permanent collections of museums in Europe, North America, and the Middle East.
Life and early career
Early life and work (1922-1940s)
Wojciech Bonawentura Fangor was born on 15 November 1922 in Warsaw to an
affluent
Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an I ...
family. His father, Konrad Fangor, was an engineer and a founder of Technical Society for Trade and Industry in Warsaw, while his mother, Wanda née Chachlowska, was a trained pianist. The artist's mother is said to have played an important role in encouraging her son's creative interests.
Prior to the outbreak of World War II, Fangor studied first at the private grammar school of Masovian School Society and then attended Mikolaj Rey Grammar School in Warsaw.
Since 1936, he trained as a painter under Tadeusz Kozłowski. The artist was exposed to the
European canon during travels to Venice and Florence in 1936 and Rome, Naples, and Paris in 1937 (he saw Pablo Picasso's
''Guernica'' at the
Paris World Exposition that year).
During World War II Fangor studied art privately under
Felicjan Kowarski, who stayed at Fangor family's country estate in Klarysew for several years during the
Nazi occupation of Poland
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
, and later
Tadeusz Pruszkowski
Tadeusz Pruszkowski (15 April 1888 – 30 June 1942) was a Polish painter and art teacher, known primarily for his portraits.
Biography
He began his artistic studies in 1904 at the , under Konrad Krzyżanowski. . Fangor obtained his diploma in 1946 at the
Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw
Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw ( pl, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Warszawie) is a public university of visual arts and applied arts located in the Polish capital. The Academy traces its history back to the Department of Arts founded at the Warsaw ...
.
Post-war Poland and Stalinist regime (1947-1956)
Following the end of World War II and the
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the post ...
, Poland came under the political influence of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
and by 1947—as a result of
rigged election
Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...
—the Stalinist regime under
Bolesław Bierut
Bolesław Bierut (; 18 April 1892 – 12 March 1956) was a Polish communist activist and politician, leader of the Polish People's Republic from 1947 until 1956. He was President of the State National Council from 1944 to 1947, President of Po ...
had consolidated political control of the country. During the late 1940s, Fangor supported himself by working on official government projects, including a 1948 large-scale figurative panel in Warsaw depicting silhouettes of workers to celebrate the Unification Congress of the
Polish Workers' Party
The Polish Workers' Party ( pl, Polska Partia Robotnicza, PPR) was a communist party in Poland from 1942 to 1948. It was founded as a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) and merged with the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in 194 ...
and
Polish Socialist Party
The Polish Socialist Party ( pl, Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS) is a socialist political party in Poland.
It was one of the most important parties in Poland from its inception in 1892 until its merger with the communist Polish Workers' ...
that took place at
Warsaw University of Technology
The Warsaw University of Technology ( pl, Politechnika Warszawska, lit=Varsovian Polytechnic) is one of the leading institutes of technology in Poland and one of the largest in Central Europe. It employs 2,453 teaching faculty, with 357 professor ...
between 15 and 21 December 1948, a consequential political event that is said to have officially turned Poland into a Soviet
satellite state
A satellite state or dependent state is a country that is formally independent in the world, but under heavy political, economic, and military influence or control from another country. The term was coined by analogy to planetary objects orbitin ...
.
The new cultural doctrine of
Socialist Realism
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is c ...
, which imposed naturalistic visual vocabularies and mandated that artists focus on themes relating to everyday life under socialism, was officially introduced in 1949. By the following year, Fangor began painting Socialist Realist compositions. In 1951, he participated in the ''Second Nationwide Display of Plastic Arts'', the second official exhibition of
Polish Socialist Realist painting and sculpture organized by the Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions (Centralne Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych) at
Zacheta National Gallery of Art, where his compositions titled ''Matka Koreanka'' (''Korean Mother'') from 1951 and ''Lenin w Poroninie'' (''Lenin in Poronin'') from 1951 were awarded the Second Prize for Painting.
The former was praised by state-controlled press for its poignant criticism of the
Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
and for challenging what the Soviet Union propaganda defined as colonialist and imperialist ambitions of the United States.
In the early 1950s, Fangor had completed multiple Socialist Realist works, including an oil painting titled ''Postaci'' (''Figures'') from 1950 which had not met with critical success at first, but which would later become one of the artist's most recognized figurative compositions, interpreted as "an archetypal expression of the Stalinist exaltation of
production
Production may refer to:
Economics and business
* Production (economics)
* Production, the act of manufacturing goods
* Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services)
* Production as a stati ...
over
consumption
Consumption may refer to:
*Resource consumption
*Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically
* Consumption (ecology), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms
* Consumption (economics), the purchasing of newly produced goods for curren ...
." The artist also began to incorporate Socialist Realist vocabulary into graphic design and several of his
agitprop
Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', " propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred ...
posters, made between 1951 and 1952, were awarded prizes at the ''Second National Poster Exhibition'' in 1952.
Even though Fangor had been intrigued by the idea of collective artistic action as a means of rebuilding Poland in the aftermath of World War II, he had eventually become disenchanted with Socialist Realism which he saw as an ineffective tool of enacting social or political change.
Polish School of Posters (1950s)
In 1953, Fangor was employed as an assistant professor at the
Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw
Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw ( pl, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Warszawie) is a public university of visual arts and applied arts located in the Polish capital. The Academy traces its history back to the Department of Arts founded at the Warsaw ...
, a position he held until 1961.
Following
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
's death in 1953 and the subsequent
Khrushchev's thaw
The Khrushchev Thaw ( rus, хрущёвская о́ттепель, r=khrushchovskaya ottepel, p=xrʊˈɕːɵfskəjə ˈotʲ:ɪpʲɪlʲ or simply ''ottepel'')William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, London: Free Press, 2004 is the period ...
, Fangor began to turn away from Socialist Realism in favor of non-figurative visual idioms. During the early 1950s, Fangor supported himself through graphic design and became one of the co-founders of what would later be known as the
Polish School of Posters
Beginning in the 1950s and through the 1980s, the Polish School of Posters combined the aesthetics of painting and the use of metaphor with the succinctness of the poster. By utilizing characteristics such as painterly gesture, linear quality, a ...
, together with
Jan Lenica
Jan Lenica (4 January 1928, Poznań, Poland – 5 October 2001, Berlin) was a Polish graphic designer and cartoonist.
A graduate of the Architecture Department of Warsaw Polytechnic, Lenica became a poster illustrator and a collaborator on the e ...
,
Henryk Tomaszewski and others.
The history of Polish School of Posters goes back to 1947 when state-controlled film agency, ''Film Polski'', began to hire artists to create posters for movies distributed in early communist Poland. All films were heavily censored and posters "were not allowed to incorporate any shots of actors, titles, or film stills." However, it was not until the thaw that poster design would flourish, rebelling "against the limits of advertising, the psychology of advertising and propaganda techniques," incorporating avant-garde vocabularies.
As scholar Dorota Kopacz-Thomaidis observes, the Polish School of Poster "offered an artist-driven, painterly approach to the art of poster, based on ambiguity and metaphor."
In his design for
Andrzej Wajda
Andrzej Witold Wajda (; 6 March 1926 – 9 October 2016) was a Polish film and theatre director. Recipient of an Honorary Oscar, the Palme d'Or, as well as Honorary Golden Lion and Honorary Golden Bear Awards, he was a prominent member of the ...
's acclaimed
''Ashes and Diamonds'' from 1958, for instance, Fangor incorporated "handwritten text, framed though as a painting, in a three-colour palette scheme" to render "the complexities of the film."
In the period 1953–1961, Fangor designed about 100 posters.
Later career and international recognition
After the thaw (1958-1966)
By 1958, Fangor had begun developing his distinct visual idiom that incorporated and combined large areas of blurred in a variety of quasi-geometrical, abstract forms, initially painted in black and white. It was the foundation of his subsequent artistic experiments, "where color, light, space, and a temporal perception remained fundamental aspects of pictorial expression."
These ideas were reflected in Fangor's first "painting environment," an exhibition space that incorporated paintings into the surrounding environment, titled ''Studium przestrzeni'' (''Study of Space'') (1958) designed together with
Stanisław Zamecznik at Salon Nowej Kultury in Warsaw.
Emphasizing the spectator's physical experience, Fangor invited the viewer to traverse the environment between the paintings to elicit a more participatory relationship, calling this a “Positive illusory space." Unlike traditional form of painting, what Fangor described as “Renaissance hole-in-the-wall through which the spectator is compelled to look," contemporary painting according to the artist's own writings was supposed to have a direct impact on its surrounding and “radiate a force onto literal space which defines a zone of physical activity.” Fangor's installation, shown to the public six years prior to
Robert Morris's breakthrough
Minimalist
In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post– World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...
exhibition at New York's
Green Gallery
The Green Gallery was an art gallery that operated between 1960 and 1965 at 15 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City. The gallery's director was Richard Bellamy, and its financial backer was the art collector Robert Scull. Green Gallery ...
, would become one of the earliest studies of
phenomenological properties of abstract art in post-war Europe.
[
While the exhibition was a radical experiment in incorporating painting into its surrounding space, and first such work in Polish post-war avant-garde, it was not well received by contemporary critics. Even though the cultural thaw had embraced abstraction by the late 1950s, art criticism focused on a traditional form of painting—and ways in which abstract art can counter the previously imposed Socialist Realism—rather than the kind of spatial experimentation embodied by Fangor's installation. It was not until the 1960s that ''Studium Przestrzeni'' would be recognized as a radical and influential intervention in the history of Polish post-war avant-garde.] The artist later recalled that his intention to leave Eastern Europe to "confront his ideas" in the late 1950s had grown stronger as a result of the initial critical reception to the 1958 installation.
Early international recognition (1959-1962)
The following year, several of Fangor's abstract paintings were included in a group exhibition organized at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, providing the artist with a chance to showcase his recent work outside of the Iron Curtain. Around that time, the artist started to turn away from his earlier monochromatic palette in favor of color compositions. He also began focusing on the circle, a geometric form that would become the most recognizable motif in his paintings and constitute the compositional basis for over four hundred works on canvas completed between 1958 and 1978. At Stedelijk, Fangor and Zamecznik created another environment installation titled ''Color in Space'' where diverse "geometric forms and bright color zones in red, blue, and black affected the space of the exhibition and the constantly changing vision of the spectator." In 1960, the artists published a ''Manifesto'', in which they reiterated a commitment to moving beyond the picture plane and heightening the viewer's perception of the physical space.
Crucial to Fangor's subsequent exposure to the West was his encounter with Beatrice G. Perry, the co-founder of Gres Gallery in Washington, D.C., who represented Yayoi Kusama
is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attribute ...
and Fernando Botero, among other international contemporary artists. She had visited Poland in 1959 with hopes of finding new Eastern European artists to include in the Gres roster and taken a great interest in Fangor's idiosyncratic abstract idiom. Perry, along with her business partner Thomas Baker Slick, became an important patron of Fangor in the United States and helped promote his work among American collectors and curators. Scholar Magdalena Dabrowski sees Perry's enthusiasm for the work of Fangor critical to his subsequent participation in two major survey exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, ''Fifteen Polish Painters'' in 1961 and ''The Responsive Eye'' in 1965, the latter being a birthplace of Op Art movement.Curated by Peter Selz
Peter Howard Selz (March 27, 1919 – June 21, 2019) was a German-born American art historian and museum director and curator who specialized in German Expressionism.
Biography
Peter Selz was born in Munich of Jewish parents. In 1936, aged 17, h ...
, who had traveled to Poland in 1960 and 1961 to select paintings for the exhibition, ''Fifteen Polish Painters'' included works by Wojciech Fangor, Henryk Stażewski
Henryk Stażewski (pronounced: ; 9 January 1894 – 10 June 1988) was a Polish Painting, painter, writer, and visual artist. Stażewski's career spanned seven decades and he is considered a pivotal figure in the history of Constructivism (art), ...
, Stefan Gierowski, Aleksander Kobzdej, Tadeusz Kantor
Tadeusz Kantor (6 April 1915 – 8 December 1990) was a Polish painter, assemblage and Happenings artist, set designer and theatre director. Kantor is renowned for his revolutionary theatrical performances in Poland and abroad. Laureate of ...
, and Jerzy Nowosielski
Jerzy Nowosielski (January 7, 1923 – February 21, 2011) was a Kraków-born Polish painter, graphic artist, scenographer, and illustrator.
He was well known for his religious compositions ( wall paintings, iconostases, polychromies) in th ...
, among others. Focused primarily on non-figurative painting, the 1961 show emphasized the importance of abstraction in the history of Polish modern art. In drawing a direct comparison between abstract art and freedom, an approach embodied by the visually liberated works of Abstract expressionism which the U.S. government had fervently promoted abroad, the exhibition served as a symbolic repudiation of Soviet politics and Socialist Realism during the Cold War. Writing in the exhibition catalogue, Selz emphasized the strong visual interaction between Fangor's paintings and surrounding environment:
While the early 1960s in Fangor's career were marked by frequent international travel, the artist continued to do limited work in Poland until 1962. Between 1960 and 1962, Fangor was commissioned to decorate train platforms of the newly re-constructed Warszawa Srodmiescie PKP railway station in Warsaw. Fangor designed a series of abstract wall and ceiling mosaics that recalled the artist's investigations into the immersive properties of color in painting and its impact on the spectator. The shifting hues of mosaics set a visual rhythm and were meant to seamlessly integrate five colors (red, orange, yellow, blue, and green) into the station's architectural interior. Unlike ''Studium Przestrzeni'', however, the Srodmiescie mosaics also had a practical application and were intended to help passengers navigate the platforms: red, orange, and yellow mosaics indicated east, while green and blue directed passengers moving westward.
Travels and ICA Fellowship (1961-1966)
In 1961, Fangor left his teaching position at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts
Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw ( pl, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Warszawie) is a public university of visual arts and applied arts located in the Polish capital. The Academy traces its history back to the Department of Arts founded at the Warsaw ...
and moved to Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
. The following year, he was invited to participate in a fellowship at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Washington, D.C. funded by the Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...
, providing an artist from the Eastern Bloc with a rare opportunity to lecture at universities across the U.S. and interact with key figures of American post-war art scene, including Josef Albers
Josef Albers (; ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born artist and educator. The first living artist to be given a solo show at MoMA and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he taught at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College ...
, Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko (), born Markus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz (russian: Ма́ркус Я́ковлевич Ротко́вич, link=no, lv, Markuss Rotkovičs, link=no; name not Anglicized until 1940; September 25, 1903 – February 25, 1970), was a Lat ...
, and Robert Goldwater.
Rothko's Abstract expressionist
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
works consisting of large swaths of color are said to have made an impact on Fangor, even though he had not shared the former artist's interest in the emotional and spiritual qualities of painting. While in the U.S., Fangor also interacted with Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...
, an American critic and a champion of Abstract expressionism, who found little interest in the artist's ideas pertaining to spatial interaction and insisted that Fangor move toward the "liquefied, poured colors" of Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...
or Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...
if he were to achieve commercial success. While Fangor had generally benefited from the exposure to various Western artistic vocabularies, he did not see his participation in the ICA fellowship as an act of political defiance against the communist regime and in private correspondence acknowledged that the funding had provided him primarily with space and means to continue developing his own abstract vocabulary.
Later that year, upon completion of the ICA Fellowship, Fangor moved to Paris. In February 1964, he had his first solo exhibition at Galerie Lambert in Paris and in June that year, he held an individual show at Städtisches Museum Schloss Morsbroich in Leverkusen, Germany. Also in 1964, he was awarded a grant from Ford Foundation to live and work in Berlin. Fangor lived in Berlin for one year before leaving for London, where he stayed for six months.
In 1965, William C. Seitz, curator at the Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
who had visited Europe in 1963 and seen Fangor's exhibition in Paris, decided to include Fangor's painting in his show ''the Responsive Eye''. The exhibition was pivotal in defining Op art as movement and later traveled to several museums across the U.S., including the Seattle Art Museum
The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...
, the Pasadena Art Museum
The Norton Simon Museum is an art museum located in Pasadena, California, United States. It was previously known as the Pasadena Art Institute and the Pasadena Art Museum and displays numerous sculptures on its grounds.
Overview
The Norton ...
(now Norton Simon Museum), and the Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...
. Despite being poorly received by contemporary critics, ''Responsive Eye'' proved hugely popular with the general public and, bolstered by the significant institutional influence of MoMA, is said to have positively influenced the commercial success of the participating artists.
Fangor's inclusion in the exhibition had an important impact on the artist's work being classified as op art in the subsequent decades, although critics have generally struggled to pinpoint the specific movement Fangor's work belonged to. In 2021, for instance, critic and art historian Karen Wilkin
Karen Wilkin (born 1940) is a New York-based independent curator and art critic specializing in 20th-century modernism.
Biography
Educated at Barnard College (1962) and Columbia University, she was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and a Fulbri ...
described one of his paintings as "a blurred version of a Noland Circle," alluding to the visual similarities between Fangor's style and that of artists associated with the color field movement.
United States (1966-1999)
Fangor eventually settled permanently in the United States in 1966 where he was offered a teaching job at Fairleigh Dickinson University
Fairleigh Dickinson University is a private university with its main campuses in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Founded in 1942, Fairleigh Dickinson University currently offers more than 100 degree programs to its students. In addition to its tw ...
in New Jersey. In 1970 he became the first Polish artist to have an individual exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. In a review for the New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
, critic John Canaday
John Edwin Canaday (February 1, 1907 – July 19, 1985) was a leading American art critic, author and art historian.
Early life and education
John Canaday was born in Fort Scott, Kansas, to Franklin and Agnes F. (Musson) Canaday. His family m ...
found some parallels between Fangor's organic shapes and Jean Arp's biomorphic forms of the Surrealist period and compared his technique to that of Color field painters. At the same time, Canaday acknowledged the difficulty of establishing an authentic art historical precedent to the artist's idiosyncratic large-scale and highly vibrant non-mimetic paintings. He described Wojciech Fangor as "the great romantic of Op Art, working not by rule but by a combination of intuition and experiment, appealing not to reason but to our yearning toward the mysterious."
Return to Poland (1999-2015)
In 1999, Wojciech Fangor returned to Poland where he continued to exhibit his work. While the artist continued to be celebrated in his home country, Fangor's recognition abroad had by then diminished. The Swiss collector and auctioneer
An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition exi ...
Simon de Pury opined in 2015 that Fangor would have a "much higher" profile had he decided to remain in the U.S. The first monographic publication devoted to the artist's career, titled ''Wojciech Fangor. Malarz przestrzeni'' (''Wojciech Fangor. Painter of Space'') and edited by art historian Bozena Kowalska, was published in 2001. Two years later, a major retrospective exhibition of Fangor's oeuvre was held at the Center for Contemporary Art at Ujazdów Castle
Ujazdów Castle ( pl, Zamek Ujazdowski) is a castle in the historic Ujazdów district, between Ujazdów Park (''Park Ujazdowski'') and the Royal Baths Park (''Łazienki Królewskie''), in Warsaw, Poland.
Its beginnings date to the 13th century ...
in Warsaw. In 2004, his paintings were included in a survey show titled ''Beyond Geometry: Experiments in Form, 1940s-1970s'' at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum).
LACMA was founded in 19 ...
(later traveling to Pérez Art Museum Miami
The Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)—officially known as the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County—is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Museum Park in Downtown Miami, Florida. Founded in 1984 as the Center for t ...
), which brought together examples of "European and Latin American concrete art, Argentine Arte Madí-Brazilian Neo-Concretism, Kinetic and Op Art, Minimalism, and various forms of post-minimalism" and positioned Fangor's work within the context of global post-war tendencies in abstract art.
Warsaw Metro M2 murals (2007)
In 2007, Fangor was asked to design decorative wall murals for seven underground stations of the new line
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
of the Warsaw Metro
The Warsaw Metro ( pl, Metro Warszawskie) is a rapid transit underground system serving the Polish capital Warsaw. It currently consists of two lines, the north-south Line M1 which links central Warsaw with its densely populated northern and sout ...
. Utilizing vibrant and highly contrasting colors, each mural spelled out the name of the corresponding station with large-scale lettering, reflecting Fangor's earlier engagement with graphic design and typography. Moreover, the Warsaw Metro murals represented the artist's return to using color as a means of conditioning the surrounding environment and eliciting participatory reaction from the spectator, similarly to the mosaics Fangor designed in the early 1960s for Srodmiescie PKP station.
Wojciech Fangor died in 2015 aged 92 and was survived by his wife, Magdalena Shummer-Fangor, and two children. At the time of his death, he resided in Błędów, Grójec County, a village near Warsaw.
Legacy
Collections
Wojciech Fangor's work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in New York, The Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips (art collector), Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the ...
in Washington, D.C., the McNay Art Museum
The McNay Art Museum, founded in 1954 in San Antonio, is the first modern art museum in the U.S. state of Texas. The museum was created by Marion Koogler McNay's original bequest of most of her fortune, her important art collection and her 24-room ...
in San Antonio, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and wa ...
, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the National Museum, Warsaw
The National Museum in Warsaw ( pl, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie), popularly abbreviated as MNW, is a national museum in Warsaw, one of the largest museums in Poland and the largest in the capital. It comprises a rich collection of ancient art ( Eg ...
, and Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź
Muzeum () is a Prague Metro station providing the interchange between Lines A and C, and serving the National Museum. It is located at the top end of Wenceslas Square.
The Line C station was opened on 9 May 1974, with the first section of ...
, among other institutions worldwide.
Art market
In 2020, ''M22'' from 1969 sold for US$1.65 million at Desa Unicum Auction House in Warsaw, which at the time set an auction record for the highest price paid for painting by a Polish artist.
Selected works
File:C14 Stadion Narodowy - ściana zatorowa, Dzień Otwarty Metra, 2014-11-09.jpg, Signature, Stadion Narodowy metro station
File:C10 Rondo ONZ - ściana zatorowa, Ogłoszenie wyników plebiscytu na głos linii M2, 2014-10-29.jpg, Rondo ONZ metro station
File:C13 Centrum Nauki Kopernik - ściana zatorowa, Dzień Otwarty Metra, 2014-11-09.jpg, Centrum Nauki Kopernik metro station
File:Muzem Warszawy 2018d.jpg, Permanent exhibition, Museum of Warsaw
Museum of Warsaw ( pl, Muzeum Warszawy) (in 1948–2014 ''Historical Museum of Warsaw'', pl, Muzeum Historyczne m.st. Warszawy) is a museum in the Old Town Market Place in Warsaw, Poland. It was established in 1936.
History of the museum
The ...
File:Radom MCSW Elektrownia Exhibition of Wojciech Fangor's works (15.05-31.08.2018).jpg, Selection of paintings by Fangor
See also
*Culture of Poland
The culture of Poland ( pl, Kultura Polski ) is the product of its geography and distinct historical evolution, which is closely connected to an intricate thousand-year history. Polish culture forms an important part of western civilization and ...
*List of Poles
This is a partial list of notable Polish or Polish-speaking or -writing people. People of partial Polish heritage have their respective ancestries credited.
Science
Physics
* Czesław Białobrzeski
* Andrzej Buras
* Georges Charpa ...
*Tadeusz Kantor
Tadeusz Kantor (6 April 1915 – 8 December 1990) was a Polish painter, assemblage and Happenings artist, set designer and theatre director. Kantor is renowned for his revolutionary theatrical performances in Poland and abroad. Laureate of ...
*Henryk Stażewski
Henryk Stażewski (pronounced: ; 9 January 1894 – 10 June 1988) was a Polish Painting, painter, writer, and visual artist. Stażewski's career spanned seven decades and he is considered a pivotal figure in the history of Constructivism (art), ...
Notes
Citations
External links
Biography and image gallery
at culture.pl
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fangor, Wojciech
1922 births
2015 deaths
Artists from Warsaw
20th-century Polish painters
20th-century Polish male artists
21st-century Polish painters
21st-century male artists
Polish graphic designers
Polish poster artists
Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw alumni
Socialist realist artists
Commanders with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta
Recipients of the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis
Recipients of the Gold Cross of Merit (Poland)
20th-century Polish sculptors
Polish male sculptors
Polish male painters
Recipients of the State Award Badge (Poland)