Stefan Gierowski

Stefan Gierowski (21 May 1925 – 14 August 2022) was a Polish painter and an avant garde artist of post-war Poland.

For many years he was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw where he earned numerous distinctions.

Stefan Gierowski was born on 21 May 1925 in Częstochowa, but grew up in Kielce, where soon after his birth the Gierowski family moved.

He came from a family of intellectuals, his father, Joseph Gierowski, was a doctor whose passion for painting played an important role in cultivating his son's artistic talent.

Artistic traditions in the family were also strongly present thanks to the figure of Antoni Gierowski, Józef's uncle, who was a nineteenth-century painter and drawer.

Patriotic traditions were equally important for the education of the young artist.

From an early age, he showed interest in painting and a desire to perfect himself in it.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, Stefan Gierowski together with his mother Stefania joined the Union of Armed Struggle (Polish: Związek Walki Zbrojnej, ZWZ), and later the Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa, AK) and actively participated in underground activities under the pseudonym "Hubert".

In 1941, at the age of 16, he began underground artistic education under the supervision of Andrzej Oleś, a well-known Kielce watercolourist, which he was forced to interrupt in 1944 because of his relocation to the Częstochowa Inspectorate.

After the dissolution of the Home Army, Gierowski moved to Cracow, where he began parallel studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Art History at the Jagiellonian University.

The experience of studying art history proved to be crucial for young Gierowski in broadening his thinking about painting and art, thereby opening him to modernity.

Under the supervision of Wojsław Mole, he wrote a seminar paper entitled "Impressionism as part of French culture".

Initially, the artist studied at the school of Prof. Władysław Jarocki, but after passing the clandestine classes conducted by Oleś, he was transferred to the third year.

He studied in the atelier of Zbigniew Pronaszko, a former formist, as well as Karol Frycz, where he studied painting in architecture and created stage designs.

Classes and conversations with Frycz familiarised Gierowski with the art of Young Poland.

He also met Jerzy Panek, Zbigniew Grzybowski, Stanisław Wójcik and Andrzej Wróblewski in his studio and at university.

During his studies, he established cooperation with the social and literary weekly magazine "Wieś", publishing an article on modern art, as well as illustrating subsequent issues.

After completing his studies, in 1948, Gierowski returned to his hometown of Kielce, where he began working as an advisor for art in the Culture Department of the Provincial Council.

He also ran an art campfire at the Association of Polish Artists and Designers (Polish: Związek Polskich Artystów Plastyków, ZPAP).

In 1949 the artist was offered a job as a technical editor of the "Wieś" magazine, which resulted in his move to Warsaw.

In June of that year, an accidental meeting between the artist and Władysław Strzemiński took place at the National Museum in Poznań – fragments of Strzemiński's texts on "Theory of Seeing" and unism were published in the "Wieś" magazine.

The next years are the heyday of family life: a marriage with Anna Golka and the birth of their two children – daughter Magdalena and son Józef.

At that time, the artist also illustrated novels by his friend, also a Kielceer, Edmund Niziurski – for example 'Księga Urwisów'.

He abandoned representational and realist painting midway through the 1950s and devoted himself entirely to abstract and optical effects.

Acknowledging the concreteness of materials and colors, the artist, by his own admission, is mostly intrigued by the dual nature of light, how light is enclosed within a painting and yet somehow escapes it.

According to the artist, each painting has a structure and a framework based on physical laws until it leaves the studio and becomes an enigma, at the disposition of the viewer, who discerns its content through a combination of emotional response and introspection.

His paintings hang in major galleries in both Europe and the United States and in many countries throughout the world.

In 1951, Gierowski began working for an Artistic and Graphic Publishing House in the portfolios and albums department.

In 1955 he took part in the International Exhibition of Young Artists at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art where his composition 'I Love Life' won second prize.

This distinction inaugurated Gierowski's popularity and recognition as a new generation painter.

This position was strengthened by the work 'Gołębnik' / 'The Dovecote' (1955), exhibited at the 6th Exhibition of the Warsaw District in November of the same year, gaining great popularity among critics.

Also in 1955, in July the artist took part in the National Exhibition of Young Art entitled "Against War – Against Fascism", also known as "Arsenal", which turned out to be a generational exhibition of artists opposing the style of socialist realism.

The artists he met there, including Andrzej Wróblewski, Tadeusz Dominik, Magdalena Więcek, Marian Bogusz, Rajmund Ziemski, Jerzy Tchórzewski, Jacek Sempoliński and Alina Szapocznikow, have become long-time friends of Gierowski.

Soon these artists were to become the leading art figures of their generation.

In January 1957, the artist exhibited his works for the first time at the Krzywe Koło Gallery, thus beginning a long and fruitful cooperation with Marian Bogusz and the Gallery's artistic circle.

Whereas in February of the same year at the General Meeting of Delegates of ZPAP districts Stefan Gierowski was elected as a secretary.

Together with the newly elected board, which included Jan Cybis, the President of the Association, and privately his friend, he started working on the new statute of ZPAP.

The statute was completely reorganised and political or socialist elements were removed from it.

His task was to reorganize the exhibition and popularization structures and animate artistic life in the country.

Thanks to Gierowski's efforts, several dozen exhibition spaces subordinate to the association were opened throughout Poland.