“An uncompromising visionary – this is how one could describe Katarzyna Kobro – an avant-garde artist, one of the most outstanding sculptors of the interwar period. Today we commemorate the anniversary of her 124th birthday with an occasional doodling. The doodle will also be visible outside Poland, including in the United States, Germany and Austria or Switzerland “- we read in the press release.
Katarzyna Kobro lived and worked in the shadow of her husband
Kobro was born on January 26, 1898 in Moscow, where she studied at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. During this period, she met her future husband, Władysław Strzemiński.
“This avant-garde artist who has revolutionized the way of thinking about sculpture has been in the shadow of Władysław Strzemiński for a long time, has been more and more intensively researched and discovered for over a dozen years” – wrote Dr. Marta Ostajewska about Katarzyna Kobro in 2020 in the introduction to the magazine of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź “Powidoki”. About Strzemiński, Andrzej Wajda made his last film – it was titled “Afterimages”. Bogus³aw Linda played the main role in it. . He wondered whether to focus on the theme of the painter’s very turbulent marriage with the sculptor Katarzyna Kobro. He decided to go the other way. A story was created about how the communist regime destroyed a rebellious man.
Kobro was described as a representative of extreme left-wing trends in art. The studio belonging to the sculptor and her husband was called “the palette of constructivism”.
At the beginning of the 1920s, Kobro and Strzemiński settled permanently in Poland. It is also a period of an explosion of the artist’s creative potential and her friendship with other great artists of her time, including Julian Przyboś, Henryk Stażewski and Jan Brzękowski. It was with them that Kobro and Strzemiński founded the “ar” group, i.e. revolutionary artists, the real avant-garde. As in 2018, Karol Sienkiewicz in “Gazeta Wyborcza”, thanks to their contacts with artists from all over Europe, Kobro and Strzemiński created a collection of avant-garde art in Łódź, which consisted entirely of gifts. The collection, consisting of over 100 items, was shown in Łódź at the City Museum, one of the first museums of contemporary art in the world, today’s Museum of Art.
One of the artist’s most important works, “ToS 75 – Structure”, unfortunately did not survive the turmoil that swept through Poland and the whole world. Her other famous works are the series of “Spatial Compositions”, created from the mid-1920s to the beginning of the 1930s.
In her works, Kobro placed great emphasis on the relationship between sculpture and space. She believed that “sculpture enters space, and space into it. The spatiality of the construction, the connection between sculpture and space, brings out from the sculpture the sincere truth of its existence. Therefore, sculpture should not contain random shapes. There should only be shapes that relate it to space. binding with it. The figure is a lie to the essence of the sculpture. “
Unfortunately, during her lifetime she did not receive the recognition she deserved. For example, her spatial sculptures were mistaken for furniture, their value was diminished.
When, in 1936, the daughter of Kobro and Strzemiński – Nika, was born, the artist exhibited her works for the last time and later devoted herself to caring for the child (the marriage ended a few years later in divorce, and Władysław wanted to take away Katarzyna’s daughter, which he ultimately failed to do. ).
Today her art is more and more appreciated
After World War II, Katarzyna Kobro was repressed by the people’s authorities and tormented by the communist judiciary. She died less than a month after her 53rd birthday on February 26, 1951. She is buried in Łódź – unfortunately, last year a storm damaged the monument.
Katarzyna Kobro was appreciated several decades after her death, and the researchers agreed that she had great contributions to constructivism and new forms in art. Since 2001, the Katarzyna Kobro – awarded to progressive and searching artists.
In 2009, the Television Theater made the play “Powidoki”, dir. Maciej Wojtyszka, which shows the private life of Katarzyna Kobro and Władysław Strzemiński. 10 years later . It is a story on the border between a plot and a documentary.
Source: Gazeta
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
