Still life on black background

In 1946, Eugeniusz Geppert settled in Wrocław; he co-founded the State Higher School of Visual Arts, where he became a professor. He served as the school's rector until 1950 and as a lecturer until 1961. A year later, he joined the group of founding members of the Wrocław Group. During his stay in Paris in 1957, the painter became fascinated by the achievements of Raul Dufy. From that time, the most characteristic tendency was the use of jagged line creating forms, which are not strictly connected with colour spots. The second half of the 1950s was when the artist's mature painting style crystallised, taking the form of allusive abstraction. However, he continued to paint horsemen, female nudes or folk sculptures, which became figures in an unreal artistic reality. The colour repertoire changed somewhat. Multicoloured, clear and pure compositions were replaced by paintings painted in relatively soft tones of greens, blues and browns. The painting matter, on the other hand, was created by thick streaks of paint. Martwa natura na czarnym tle [Still Life Against a Black Background] was purchased from the artist for the collection of the National Museum in Szczecin in 1970, a year after it was painted. The painting shows the tendencies of the period described above. It is not a traditionally understood still life. There are objects typical of this type of representation, such as a vase with flowers, a jug and folk figurines, but they form a somewhat open composition that blends with the background. It is still life in abstraction, which manages to emphasise the autonomous order of the artwork. In shades of blue, green, red and white, the patches of muted colours have been laid down in a convex line. This conception of the work is an exciting dialogue with the history of art and folk culture.

Beata Małgorzata Wolska