Fangor Known And Unknown “Fangor. Beyond the Painting” exhibition

This year marks the 100th anniversary of birth of Wojciech Fangor. It is a good opportunity to re-evaluate his artistic practice, which is further encouraged by the exhibition “Fangor. Beyond the Painting” held  in the Department of Modern Art of the National Museum in Gdańsk, located in the Abbot’s Palace. The exhibition opens on 7^th October, 2022.

Wojciech Zmorzyński, the curator of the exhibition, says the following: an immense oeuvre of Fangor is currently dispersed. In recent years, a number of his works which used to belong to the Western and American collections have returned to Poland, and so there is an opportunity to stage multiple art shows featuring his “new works”. Our exhibition is reminiscent of his great retrospective from 2012. However, the Abbot’s Palace in Gdańsk-Oliwa, in which the Department of Modern Art is located, offers extraordinary possibilities as far as presentation of Fangor’s work is concerned. Here, the audience can take a journey through all the periods in the artist’s practice, showcased in seventeen different rooms. Our selection process was very meticulous. In addition, we will present a large series of drawings from various periods that have never been displayed publicly so far. Material from the archives, including newsreels, photographs and interviews, will also accompany the exhibition and allow viewers to observe the personal aspects of Fangor’s work, and draw connections between events from his life and his practice. The exhibition features also artist’s photographs from different stages of his life which will correspond with his creative output. The evolution will also be highlighted through citations from an unpublished autobiography.

Wojciech Fangor is one of the most famous Polish artists, which is especially due to his abstract paintings from the 1960s. Most recognizable are compositions depicting a large circle with a blurry edge that seems to have been set in motion. These works are representative of the global op-art movement of the period. They were the artist’s attempt to transgress the surface of a painting, so that it comes closer to the viewer and resonates through space between this viewer and the image.

Early work

Abstract works did not appeared in Fangor’s practice straight away. The beginnings of his artistic journey are explored in the exhibition in Gdańsk. According to the curator, [it] highlights works from the years 1953-1955 that flew in the face of the mainstream artistic tendencies of that time. Fangor graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1946. Only three years later, socialist realism was declared as the official art movement. Two of his most famous paintings – “Postaci” (“Figures”,1950) and “Matka Koreanka” (“The Korean Mother”, 1951) – were created in the early 1950s. These works embody the artist’s attempts to follow the rules set by the government. Nonetheless, Fangor painted “Pałac Kultury” (“The Palace of Culture”) already in 1953, depicting an upside-down view of this monumental building that was still under construction. The painting heralds a new era in the artist’s practice and a departure from realism.

Cosmos, planets and stars

Other works from the mid-1950s also clearly demonstrate a shift towards minimalism and indications of an upcoming focus on abstraction. The painting “Księżyce” (“Moons”, 1956) reflects his fascination with astronomy. In his youth, Fangor was so passionate about the subject that he constructed a telescope completely on his own. He even considered becoming a professional astronomer, but ultimately decided against it when he realized that he was interested in the visual, not the scientific, aspect of the cosmos, planets and stars. Fangor’s keen interest in astronomy started when he was only twelve years old and lasted his entire life. The artist stressed the influence of the discipline on his painting especially in the final years of his life – Zmorzyński says.

Wojciech Fangor reignited his passion after he had moved back to the United States, where he bought a farm in Summit in the State of New York. He built a professional observatory and mounted a telescope with the diameter of 17.5 inches and a focal length of approximately 2 meters. He maintained an interest in astronomy. In 2014, Fangor created his final compositions – a series of thirteen works under the title “Heweliusz” (“Hevelius”). The concept referred to an earlier series of palimpsests. This time, Fangor subjected prints of a sky atlas drafted by Johannes Hevelius to a painterly intervention. The series was meant as an homage to the astronomer from Gdańsk as well as Fangor’s own farewell to two of his greatest passions in life – astronomy and painting.

Perhaps this fascination with celestial bodies viewed through a telescope, as they seemed to have been pulsating against the backdrop of the sky, served also as inspiration for the paintings of circles and other seemingly pulsating shapes. These experiments with colours, their intersecting and resonance alongside the optical effects they create paved the artist’s way to one of the most prestigious art galleries in the world. In 1970, the Guggenheim Museum in New York held an exhibition of 37 paintings by Wojciech Fangor. This achievement thrust him into the limelight and spawned many other successful endeavours. Zmorzyński states the following: He is popular for multiple reasons. Fangor experimented and astonished, but remained authentic in every iteration of himself. He had gained recognition in Poland before he moved abroad. An iconoclast and one of the founding fathers of the Polish Poster School, he was the painter who achieved success during the period of socialist realism. Until this day, Fangor remains the only Polish artist whose works were displayed on a solo show in the Guggenheim Museum. 

An oeuvre one keeps re-discovering anew

In the early 1960s, Fangor moved abroad, but he returned to Poland in 1999. He was unable to find his bearings in the local artworld straight away. After a while he managed to find success that resulted in myriad exhibitions and commissioned projects (for example,graphic design for the 2. metro line in Warsaw), as well as exorbitant prices for his work sold on auctions (PLN 923.000 for the painting “M58” from 1970 during an auction in 2015). Zmorzyński emphasizes that high prices for Fangor’s work are a completely different matter. Art market seeks out those artists whose pieces can break records. Multiple factors are at play here, both the figure of the artist and their work. One can make a killing on Fangor’s abstract pieces from the years 1958-1973; artistic merit of paintings, various formats – all these factors cause the prices to skyrocket.

Wojciech Fangor is still extremely popular with audiences, which tend to visit exhibitions of his works in their droves. According to the curator, the strength of Fangor’s talent is astounding. Add the diligence and constant exploration of innovative solutions in art, and you get an oeuvre that you can keep re-discovering anew, looking for connections between subsequent periods in his art practice, life experiences and interests.