“Girls, girls, girls. Tadeusz Gronowski through the Eyes of Women” is an exhibition at the Bydgoszcz Center of Art, in which I was invited to participate as one of the 11 artists. Each artist created an interpretation of a selected work by Tadeusz Gronowski. This resulted in an image of Gronowski’s work seen through the eyes of women.
About Tadeusz Gronowski – the creator of the Polish School of Poster Art – I learned while studying Graphic Design at the Academy of Fine Arts. Now, I could engage in a dialogue with his artwork. In a certain sense, history has come full circle for me.
“I can be impossible”, acrylic on canvas, 146×92 cm (2x73x92 cm)
Tadeusz Gronowski (1894–1990)was a graphic artist, painter, illustrator, advertising designer, poster and postage stamp designer, set designer, and interior architect. He worked in Warsaw and Paris. Gronowski was one of the most prominent Polish creators of applied graphics, book illustration, and posters. He designed advertisements for companies such as Wedel, Orbis, and LOT, which still serve as timeless examples of creating enduring works.
The exhibition will present 11 works by Tadeusz Gronowski, previously unknown to the wider public. The pieces were created in the late 1950s and 1960s, a period when Gronowski drew inspiration from the aesthetics of cubism, limited the color scale, and boldly synthesized forms. In a series of paintings from the late 1960s, he created abstract, geometrized compositions. He gave them a dynamic arrangement and diverse texture achieved through the changing rhythm of parallel lines, emphasizing relationships between foreground figures and backgrounds. A common motif was the female nude, geometrized, with manneristically elongated proportions and soft modeling, or entirely flattened and schematic. The artist placed figures against an abstract background created by geometric shapes or rhythmic arrangements of planes. Works from this period differ from advertising posters and applied graphics; they reveal the artist from an entirely new, less-known perspective.
The uniqueness of the artist’s works inspired us to create an unconventional exhibition. We invited 11 female artists to participate in the project, each asked to provide their interpretation of a selected Gronowski painting. This allows us to see Gronowski’s creativity through the eyes of contemporary women. In one place, we gather various perspectives of female artists on femininity and, simultaneously, on the artist’s work. The diversity of the resulting works symbolizes the diversity of women and how we perceive our surroundings.
