Stanislaw Fijalkowski

A complete monograph devoted to the Polish master of abstract painting, whose compositions play with minimalist forms and colour.

Stanisław Fijałkowski (1922-2020) boasts a direct connection to the very origins of the European avant-garde — he was an assistant of Wladyslaw Strzeminski, who in turn had studied under Kazimir Malevich.

Throughout six decades Fijałkowski maintained a solely unique idiom of mystical painting, hovering between the abstract and the representational. He also explored the subject theoretically and translated into Polish several important texts, including Wassily Kandinsky's On the Spiritual in Art.

Fijałkowski was also an accomplished engraver, with prints in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and Tate Britain. Even when simplified to black and white, his compositions still manage to convey an aura of meditative mystery. The artist had significant international presence in his lifetime — he represented Poland at the São Paulo and Venice biennales, lectured in Belgium and Germany, and served as Vice-President of the International Society of Wood Engravers XYLON in Winterthur, Switzerland.

This comprehensive monograph is a rare opportunity for the international audience to rediscover an artistic vision of such scope and magnitude. Longevity allows Fijałkowski to trump the logic of 'isms', as critic Mark Sadler pointed out in his Frieze review of a 2016 exhibition.