Pamiętnik Sztuk Pięknych / Fine Arts Diary

Titelei

Die Redaktion — 2025-11-21

Spis treści / Table of contents

Die — 2025-11-21

Wprowadzenie

Katarzyna Kulpińska — 2025-11-21

Tadeusz Tuszewski (1907–2004) – przedwojenny debiutant w powojennej rzeczywistości

Urszula Dragońska — 2025-11-21

Tadeusz Tuszewski (1907–2004) – a pre-war debutant in the post-war reality (Summary)

The article discusses the hitherto unexplored graphic art of Tadeusz Tuszewski – an artist known for his activities as a conservator of paper after World War II and his work in the field of lettering and bookplates. As a result of query, nearly 100 graphic compositions, mostly woodcuts by Tuszewski were found in Polish art collections. The majority of them are student works and prints from before 1939. Tuszewski received solid graphic education in pre-war Poland, which resulted in his excellent technical skills. He graduated State School of Decorative Arts and Art Industry in Poznań (1931) and the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (1936). He was a student of Jan Wroniecki (1980–1948), Władysław Skoczylas (1883–1934), Leon Wyczółkowski (1852–1936) and the most important for his artistic formation – Edmund Bartłomiejczyk (1885–1950). The woodcuts created by Tuszewski before World War II – still-life paintings and landscapes from Bulgaria – attracted public interest and won critical favor. His post-war graphic compositions maintained the same high technical level and were kept in a similar, realistic style. Although there were not many of them, the artist made sure to present them to the public at domestic and foreign exhibitions from the 1940s to the 1960s. World War II left an enormous gap in the circle of graphic artists in Warsaw: many of them died or emigrated, others lost all their achievements and abandoned graphic work. Tuszewski did not give up creating woodcuts, however he devoted much more time to conservation and teaching activities. He continued to create realistic rural landscapes and still-lifes, introducing color printing, which can be seen in works such as: For a Conditioning Camp, From My Window, Landscape with Cows, Miastko – harvest or Miastko at dusk. For some, the realism and themes of Tuszewski’s woodcuts may be synonymous with the assumptions of socialist realism. In fact, they are a continuation of the tradition of Warsaw woodcuts from the best years of its development in the interwar period.

Alicja i Bożena Wahl. Początki

Adrianna Filipiak — 2025-11-21

Alicja and Bożena Wahl. Origins (Summary)

Twin sisters Alicja (1932–2020) and Bożena (b. 1932) were artists active from the late 1950s, today known particularly known for thei rvivid imagination and unique drawing style. In their famous semi self-portraits, Wahls portrayed female sexuality encased in floral forms and animal costumes with considerable emotional intensity in the gestures and bodies of characters. Despite their erstwhile popularity – they ran the AB Wahl gallery in Warsaw – and extensive archive which includes thousands of works on canvas and paper, numerous newspaper clippings and Alice’s diaries, there is a lack of texts organising factual information or analyses of their artistic language in the literature. In view of the apparent research gap, the purpose of this article is to present facts about the twin artists’ education and their art from an early period, i.e. 1955–1970.

Pejzaż miasta – portret wewnętrzny. Graficzna podróż Małgorzaty Stanielewicz

Kajetan Giziński — 2025-11-21

Cityscape – inner portrait. The printmaking journey of Małgorzata Stanielewicz (Summary)

The printmaking oeuvre of Małgorzata Stanielewicz, an effect of city life fascination, its constant transformations and degradation, is apart of abroader phenomenon, called by some the „dot linocut”. Despite the fact that the artist herself met the name relatively late and did not identify with it, her experimentative attitude relative to linocut matrix has its roots in phenomenal Józef Gielniak, who defined Polish printmaking after World War II. Travels to the cities marked with its history and suffering juxtaposed with the force of nature strongly resonates with Stanielewicz’s inner world which she portrays through architectural transformations into organic congeries of the artificial and the natural.

Grafika w poszerzonym polu czy kultura obrazowania graficznego – w poszukiwaniu ram metodologicznych dla badań nad współczesną grafiką

Marta Anna Raczek-Karcz — 2025-11-21

Printmaking in an Expanded Field or Print Culture – in search of a methodological framework for research on contemporary graphic arts (Summary)

The proposed text analyzes two potential methodological frameworks for research on contemporary graphic arts, an area in which significant transformations have taken place over the last two decades, both in terms of the methods and tools used by artists, and in the area of the artist-work-spectator relationship. The first group of transformations concerns the inclusion of new tools for image producing (screen turn within digital print, laser cutting of the matrix, inclusion of photocopying techniques into the framework of classic metal or stone matrices, etc.), as well as new methods of rending the image public (installations, performances, exhibitions of matrices, audiovisual narratives, including interactive forms based on mechanics taken from the world of digital games, etc.) in the area of interest of printmakers and graphic artists. The second group of changes concerns the increasing role of the spectator in the process of perceiving the work, resulting in the expansion or outright abandonment of the contemplative model in favor of interaction between the creator and the spectator through matrices art, the recipient’s interaction with the graphic dispositive prepared by the artist, or the recipient’s co-creation or co-participation in the process of graphic image creation. These changes led to the need to reformulate analytical categories applied to the description of new graphic forms. The proposal presented in this text is to discuss and present the benefits, as well as to indicate potential weaknesses resulting from the following methodological decisions: adaptation of the concept proposed by Rosalind Krauss for the study of new forms of sculptural art known as the expanded field to the needs of the analysis of contemporary graphic art; transfer of the concept of print culture used in historical, library and literary studies to the area of analysis of graphic arts and updating it in order to adapt it to the research needs regarding activities in the field of contemporary graphic arts.

Co z tą tradycją? Postcyfrowe praktyki we współczesnej grafice polskiej na przykładach realizacji Krzysztofa Tomalskiego, Karola Pomykały oraz Darka i Filipa Gajewskich

Sebastian Dudzik — 2025-11-21

What about this tradition? Post-digital practices in contemporary Polish printmaking on the examples of works by Krzysztof Tomalski, Karol Pomykała and Darek and Filip Gajewski (Summary)

This text merely signals a broader research issue on which Ihave been working for a long time. It is the problem of changes that a broadly understood image and imaging are subject to in the post-digital reality. The considerations presented in the article have been narrowed down to the area of artistic printmaking. Selected examples of artistic works serve to indicate the complicated nature of the technically determined creative process, as well as the meandering between tradition and modernity and the materiality and ephemerality of the image itself, which is important for post-digital culture. They are also intended to present the specific changes that the printmaking medium is currently undergoing. The works of Krzysztof Tomalski, Karol Pomykała and Darek and Filip Gajewski differ significantly from one another, yet all of them bear clear features of post-digital thinking about images. It is characterized by the free, mutual interpenetration of elements of a technical language, and the above-mentioned clear meandering between actual and virtual reality. This hybrid nature draws attention to the artists’ discourse with the printing tradition and the process rudiments embedded in it. The realizations of Tomalski, Pomykała and Gajewski by looking „through” digital experiences are a perfect exemplification of building of a new awareness of the medium after the revolution which changed reality not only in the field of art, but in all our activities. This process is a part of a broader perspective of a return to the tactical and bodily awareness.

Problematyka technik cyfrowych i działań intermedialnych w grafice polskiej (od lat 80. XX wieku do 2021 roku)

Patrycja Wójcik — 2025-11-21

Digital techniques and intermedia activities in Polish printmaking (from the 1980s to 2021) (Summary)

The paper concerning Polish digital printmaking and intermedia activities in printmaking defines the genesis of these phenomena and outlines the history of the process of recognition and inclusion of digital printmaking in art events (competitions, exhibitions). The historical outline illustrates in which extent the digital revolution has influenced the expansion of boundaries and redefinition of (not only) graphic art as a discipline. The analyses were carried out on the basis of data collected by the author of the article included in the following forms: - a chart illustrating key developments in the evolution and reception of digital graphics: A timeline sketch of the development of digital activities in Polish graphic art and key events (1980 – 2021) – a statistical overview: Percentage of prizes awarded to prints made with the use of digital techniques and intermedia activities at the International Print Triennial in Krakow in relation to overall prizes awarded (1994 – 2012). These data provided a framework for the periodisation and characterisation of the phenomenon: the dynamics of the expansion of digital printmaking.