Lot 606 D

The Polish artist Wojciech Fangor gains international fame as co-founder of the Polish Poster School. Beside his early works, which were heavily influenced by socialist realism in the beginning, first abstract works emerge from the late 1950s onwards. At the same time, his radiant circle compositions constitute the main emphasis in his oeuvre. As also becomes apparent in this present work, the vibrating bands of colour that fluidly merge into one another, generate an almost hypnotic effect spellbinding the observer. Thus, the luminous colours in a spectrum of green and blue violet give the impression of becoming blurred in front of their grey background. „Fangor's spatial dynamics take place somewhere between the viewers and the canvas, at a point in mid-air where the eye perceives. Any attempt to focus on the blurred and fluid images provokes an immediate activation of color and contour which disintegrate and reintegrate and, like an after-image, elude the eye's fixation. When the eye finally penetrates this kinetic field to settle upon the canvas, the viewer realizes that the colors and configurations he sees at a distance are not pigmentary hues and factual shapes but illusory foreground images engendered by the activity of perception. It is here that the above definition of optical illusion rings true: the eye's perception do not stand up when their implication are tested.” (Margit Rowell, in: Fangor, exhib.cat. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1970, p. 12)