Portrait

Eugeniusz Eibisch studied art between 1912 and 1920 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, in the ateliers of Jacek Malczewski and Wojciech Weiss. Two years after graduation, he obtained a scholarship in Paris, where he became associated with a circle of artists from the École de Paris, including Chaim Soutin, Maurice Utrill and Eugeniusz Zak. In 1939, the artist returned to Kraków and accepted the position of professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, continuing his artistic activity. In Eibisch's early works, one can notice his interest in the Formists. For him, a painting was an autonomous artwork built from geometric forms. Contact with the Parisian environment caused a shift in his interest in colour. The changes in his artistic attitude became evident in his depictions of bouquets and portraits of his wife. During the Nazi occupation, he had to go into hiding. After the war, he created following the doctrine of socialist realism. He created such paintings as Lenin or Walka o pokój [Struggle for Peace]. In the second half of the 1950s, the artist abandoned committed art. At the turn of the fifties/sixties, expressive colour compositions, inspired by frequent trips to the south of Europe, Yugoslavia, Italy and Spain, took centre stage again in Eibisch's painting. In his still life, he expressed his interest in solid objects. Fish, pheasants and corn were frequent motifs. In the Szczecin collection, there is Portret [The Portrait] from 1923, one of the examples of works created in the Parisian period. The artist applied the paint freely, and the inner light of the form played an important role. Eibisch's constant analysis of the possibilities of painting led him to various attempts to cross the borders, including the creation of simplified figurative forms and the obliteration of the physiognomic features of the portrayed people.

Beata Małgorzata Wolska