Dull autumn

Alfred Lenica was a musician who became a painter. Both artistic elements manifested themselves in many of his works. He spent the occupation period during the Second World War in Kraków. There he met the artists who later formed the Kraków Group, which he formally joined in 1965. He was closely associated with Tadeusz Kantor, which resulted, among other things, in his works being exhibited during the famous First Exhibition of Modern Art in Kraków in December 1948. From 1945, he lived in Poznań, where he joined the Polish Workers' Party. In 1957, he settled permanently in Warsaw, where, despite his advanced age, he was still very active. His oeuvre comprises numerous works that reflect the changes in modern art and quite a few typically socialist realist paintings. The collection of the National Museum in Szczecin includes a painting from 1957. It belongs to a group of works in which this painter's poetics is most evident (the most visible inspirations were Tashism, Informel and Surrealism). It means, above all, covering the surface of the canvas with several layers of paint of different colours, which the artist then uncovered one by one using special tools made of cardboard. In the case of the work from the Szczecin collection, another frequent procedure, namely dripping, i.e. free spilling and splashing of paint on the surface, is dealt with. On many occasions, he filled the representations with black and white lacquers from a can. Both ways of creation were also characteristic of Jackson Pollock. Lenica's painting is an example of expressive non-representational painting, in which, among other things, the dark tonality brings out the drama and atmosphere of anxiety.

Beata Małgorzata Wolska