Aleksander Kobzdej (1920 Olesko in Ukraine - 1972 Warsaw), Fresser, 1965

oil, panel, 117 x 88 cm, signed p.d.: 'Kobzdej 65' and on the reverse: 'Aleksander Kobzdej 1965 "Fresser" 117 x 88'.



Painter, graphic artist, illustrator and stage designer. He studied architecture at the Technical University in Lviv from 1939, graduating in 1946 from the Gdansk Polytechnic. During his studies, he simultaneously took painting classes under Wladyslaw Lam. Immediately after the war ended in 1945, he took up studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow under Eugeniusz Eibisch. However, this was a short episode in the artist's life, as later that year he became Władysław Lam's assistant at the Faculty of Architecture at the Gdansk University of Technology. He then took a job at the Sopot State Higher School of Fine Arts, where he worked until 1951, after which he moved to Warsaw, where he settled permanently. The artist's painting work can be divided into several stages. Initially he drew inspiration from the achievements of the Post-Impressionists. Then he turned to realism, referring to the masters of painting of the 19th century. During the period of socialist realism, he became a leading artist of officially decreed art by the communist authorities. Author of the masterpiece of socialist realism Give a Brick, (from the diptych "Give a Brick and Bricklayers"). He broke with socialist realism in 1955.The artist turned to informel, creating abstract compositions from that point on, paying great attention to color, and the structural and textural aspects of the painting. Kobzdej participated in the Venice Biennale in 1954, and international acclaim brought Alexander Kobzdej success at the 5th São Paulo Biennale, where he received the most important award of his career for his "Idols" series. He moved away from representational painting and began creating in the spirit of informel. He worked on the structure and texture of the painting - he created the series "Cracks" started in 1966. An extension of this series became the painting objects created since 1969, called "Hors cadre" (without frames), entering without any restrictions into relations with the surrounding space.