Composition

Andrzej Żywicki’s Kompozycja is one of more than ten works by this artist in the collection of the National Museum in Szczecin. The painting probably depicts work in a shipyard. Despite raw form and sparing use of colour, the painting features a great deal of expression. Żywicki experimented with forms of representing the real world. He created in various techniques, using materials such as string, caps, fabric and cardboard. His themes came from the surrounding reality, and the formal structures of his paintings, including the arrangement of colours, were based on mathematics. He spent a lot of time looking for ways to express form in its two-dimensional shape. He developed a code of signs which he called modules, ‘the building blocks of harmony containing only similarities and unity.’Andrzej Żywicki studied at the State Higher School of Visual Arts in Sopot. He arrived in Szczecin in 1953 with the so-called Sopot Group. Fifteen graduates of the Sopot-based academy, brought to Szczecin on the initiative of the then Minister of Culture and Art, were tasked with reviving the local artistic community. In 1955, together with his colleagues from the Group, Żywicki took part in the Exhibition of Young Visual Arts at the Warsaw Arsenal, during which young artists manifested their own approach to art, independent of the prevalent trend of realism. This has cemented their position as the pioneers of the Szczecin art scene. Żywicki's eccentric personality left its mark on the local community of painters, poets and actors, who met at Klub 13 Muz. To this day, there are legends about the debates and creative initiatives taking place there.

Marlena Chybowska-Butler