Aleksander Żyw | Before & After | November 2020 | The Scottish Gallery

THE

SCOTTISH

G A L L E RY

1 6 D U N DA S S T R E E T

EDINBURGH, EH3

Tommy Żyw presents

ALEKSANDER

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Z

Y

W

Before & After

works from 1934 - 1951

WEDNESDAY 28 OCTOBER TO WEDNESDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2020

Tommy Żyw presents

ALEKSANDER

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Z

Y

W

Before & After

works from 1934 - 1951

16 Dundas Street Edinburgh EH3 6HZ +44 (0)131 558 1200 scottish-gallery.co.uk

1. Self Portrait, c.1935, oil on panel, 38 x 30 cm

STRENGTHED BY EXPERIENCE Aleksander Żyw was born in Lida, north-east Poland in 1905 and trained at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts.With the award of a scholarship, he travelled extensively through Europe, often on foot. His travels along the Mediterranean Coast made a profound impression on Żyw, reflected in the choices he would make later in life. He settled in Paris in 1934, where he set up a studio and immersed himself in landscape painting, spending the summers working en plein air, and the winters exploring the city, developing his technique.

He was travelling in Corsica when news of the War broke in 1939. After the invasion of Poland, the Polish Army began mobilizing in mainland France and Żyw rushed back to enlist. He served as a Sergeant in a Heavy Machine Gun unit and saw action on the Maginot Line. When France fell, he made an escape through Spain and Portugal before eventually arriving in Britain. Żyw was directed to Scottish military camps at Biggar, Galashiels and Forfar, where large parts of the Polish Armed Forces were reforming, and was appointed by the Polish Army as an official war artist. He sketched extensively around the camps, before being deployed on an Atlantic destroyer and in the Normandy Campaign, followed by the Allied Campaign into Belgium. By his own admission, he ‘really learnt to draw’ during his years as a war artist. The drawings from this period document the life of Polish troops and have been exhibited widely, including at the Imperial War Museum in London in 1975, and the Polish Army Museum in Warsaw in 1991. They were also published in the book Poles in Uniform in 1943, with a foreword by Edwin Muir.

In 1946, Żyw married Leslie Goddard, and they bought an ancient, derelict house in Edinburgh’s Dean Village. They enlisted the help of Basil Spence to restore the house, and later purchased an old workshop further up the street, which provided Żyw with a large studio space and a gallery. During this time, he had a successful exhibiting career in the city and for a short time aligned himself with the Edinburgh art establishment, exhibiting at the Royal Scottish Academy and the Society of Scottish Artists. His first exhibition at The Scottish Gallery was held in 1945 and was a commercial success, featuring paintings rescued from his pre-war Paris studio which had been left untouched by the Gestapo. In 1946, as the true horrors experienced by those in occupied Poland during the War were starting to emerge, Żyw’s art changed dramatically – and tragically he discovered that none of his family in Warsaw had survived. Żyw stopped exhibiting for two years, and spent the time locked in his studio painting furiously. What followed was a mammoth creative burst, with which he turned his back on the conventional painting methods that had started to gain him a decent reputation.

Instead of painting nature, I began to put on to the canvas the struggle and tensions of my inner self. I began to experiment in my work. In the course of the next few years, my painting passed through many phases. I might call the first of these the period of searching inside myself to see what I could find.

This new Expressionist language which Żyw adopted culminated in the years 1946 – 1949. These works, which depicted the human form gripped by raw emotion as their primary subject, were executed quickly, with thick paint, often applied directly from the tube. This style seemed to shock the British public of the 1940s - the reaction of one London art critic on seeing Żyw’s new works was: “(Żyw) has gone berserk… The immense amount of paint on the pictures reminds me of an artist who has said to sell his paintings by weight.”

A trip to France and Italy in 1949 was a crucial moment in his post-war development. Douglas Hall (former keeper of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and friend of Żyw’s) once claimed, slightly tongue in cheek, that Żyw’s trip to the sun did seem to chase away the “dark clouds of northern expressionism.” And to some extent this is exactly what happened.

It was not just Żyw’s palette that had changed; it was his whole approach to the act of painting. The thick paint that had played such a central role in his work since the War did not completely vanish, but it became a base layer, transposed with coloured glazes on top, which he drew into with the end of a brush or knife.The human figure was no longer used purely as a vehicle for expression, but instead became incorporated into the overall decorative composition. These new works marked a fresh chapter for Żyw as an artist; he became primarily interested in the rich surface of the painting, and the works that followed in the early 1950s have a jewel, glass-like quality. It is perhaps this stylistic phase that Żyw is best remembered for in Scotland, and his major work of this period, Journey Woven in Imagination, 1950 is now in the collection of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh.

From the 1960s, Żyw spent an increasing amount of time in Tuscany where he and his family set up an olive farm, Poggio Lamentano. At this time his art turned in another new direction, and he developed a style of painting that initially seemed abstract but was in fact careful studies of the natural world. Żyw continued to exhibit across Europe, with shows in Paris, Basel and a retrospective exhibition held by the Polish National Union of Artists in 1967. In the UK, he enjoyed a Festival exhibitions at The Scottish Gallery in 1950 and 1957, and major exhibitions with The Scottish Arts Council in 1972, the Talbot Rice in 1975 and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1986. His last significant exhibitions were in Parma in 1988, and Desenzano in 1991 & 1999. In recent years he has been represented in exhibitions in Volterra, Parma and the Borders Museum in Hawick.

This exhibition offers a snapshot of a pivotal moment in Żyw’s artistic career, from the years 1934 - 1951. It features rare, early work of Paris and the Mediterranean; sketches from his time as a war artist on the front; drawings of his adopted home, Edinburgh; and an important selection of oils from the immediate post-war era. Out of the devastation and suffering of war, the decimation of his native country, and above all, the loss of his family in Poland, emerged a radically altered artist with a body of work strengthened by the experiences he had encountered. The War acted as a catalyst for Żyw’s art - the professional practice that he had enjoyed in Paris had been completely interrupted, and his service in the Polish Army was a forceful and maturing influence.The skills developed from the constant sketching he completed during the War enabled Żyw to abandon naturalism in favour of the subjective and provocative art that defined the rest of his career.

It has been 25 years since the death of my grandfather at his home in Castagneto Carducci in Tuscany. I was only seven when he died, and I have always regretted not knowing him better. I remember him as a strong and rumbustious figure at the head of the family dinner table. I was always jealous of my older brother Danny and elder cousins who were occasionally invited upstairs to the hallowed space of the studio. There Aleksander would show them the paintings he had been working on and impart some of his favourite stories and insights to his eldest grandchildren. I have, however, learnt to know my grandfather through different means - through the legacy of his paintings. His artworks span a career of 70 years, and march alongside the history of Europe in the 20th century. They represent an astonishing body of work and a commitment to his own individual vision. I hope this focused exhibition introduces a new audience to the art of Aleksander Żyw, and provides a reminder and a tribute to the many émigré artists, who, in the face of dispossession and displacement, made an enduring and important contribution to the British cultural landscape.

Tommy Żyw, 2020

Ĺťyw working in his Edinburgh studio, 1964

2. Santorini, 1.vii.1934 pen and watercolour, 50 x 36 cm titled & dated verso

3.Verona, vii.1937 gouache and ink, 49 x 39 cm titled & dated verso

4. Pont de Passy, 1935 oil on canvas, 71.1 x 91.4 cm Provenance: The artist’s studio inventory number AZ004 As a young painter fresh out of Warsaw Academy of Fine Art, Aleksander Żyw discovered colour and plein-air painting when he arrived in Paris in the early 1930s. He must have been aware of the advancing movements of Cubism and Surrealism but for the young Żyw, with his background and training, the light and colour of Impressionism were a sufficiently exciting revelation. Żyw spent his summers in the Mediterranean painting landscapes and his winters in Paris experimenting with techniques. This rare early oil of Pont de Passy in Paris (the bridge was renamed Pont de Bir-Hakeim in 1942) shows Żyw engaging with his local surroundings, and the industrial workings on the banks of the Seine. This work, like all his pre-war paintings, were rescued from his Paris studio on his return to France in 1944.

5. Soldiers in a Landscape, c.1941 gouache on paper, 24 x 33.5 cm

After fighting in France, Żyw found his way to Britain and in 1940 he was appointed war artist to the 10th Armoured Brigade, and later to the Polish 1st Armoured Division. As an official war artist, he documented the life of the Polish troops in Britain and by his own admission, he ‘really learnt to draw’ during these years. This work shows a line of soldiers, rifles raised, proceeding through the countryside. Stripped of their individual identity, the proceeding line of men become indistinguishable from themselves and the landscape within which they march. This work, captured in gouache, most likely depicts a training exercise in the Scottish Borders.

6. ORP Piorun, 1.7.42 pencil drawing, 37 x 25 cm signed lower left, dated lower right

7. 1st Polish Armoured Division Brass Band, 18.xi.1941 pencil drawing, 24 x 33 cm signed lower centre, titled & dated lower right

8. From Calton Hill, c.1944 pen drawing, 20.5 x 25 cm

When stationed in Edinburgh Żyw did not restrict himself solely to sketching military life, but also completed drawings and several paintings of the city, which were published weekly in the Evening Dispatch. These city works were widely appreciated and cemented Żyw’s introduction to the Scottish scene.They were exhibited, along with recent drawings from his Normandy campaign, in The Scottish Gallery in February, 1945. Żyw decided to publish a selection of these Edinburgh drawings in a book entitled Edinburgh as the Artist sees It, 1945. H. Harvey Wood, a member of the British Council, wrote the preface.

There he introduces Żyw to a new Edinburgh; one changed by war into a cosmopolitan, European city, reminiscent of her eighteenth-century self. Żyw was at the heart of this changing Edinburgh, a European artist who was offering a fresh and foreign eye to the city’s familiar sights.

9. West Register House, Charlotte Square, 1944 pen drawing, 20.5 x 25 cm signed & dated lower right

10. Holyrood Palace in the Rain, c.1944 pen drawing, 19 x 24 cm

11. Landing at Arromanches, 1944 oil on canvas, 75 x 91.4 cm signed verso Exhibited: City of Bradford Art Gallery, 1955, cat.51; Aleksander Żyw. A Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings 1941 – 71, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, touring to Aberdeen Art Gallery, Dundee Museum & Art Gallery (organised by the Scottish Arts Council), 1972, cat. 6; Art in Exile, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh & Boundary Gallery, London, 2008 Provenance: The artist’s studio inventory number AZ044 Illustrated: Douglas Hall, Art in Exile, Sansom & Company Ltd, 2008, p.84

12. Flowerpiece, 1945 oil on canvas, 81.3 x 60.6 cm Exhibited: Aleksander Żyw. A Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings 1941 – 71, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, touring to Aberdeen Art Gallery, Dundee Museum & Art Gallery (organized by the Scottish Arts Council), 1972, cat. 8 Provenance: The artist’s studio inventory number AZ054

For a short time Żyw was associated with fellow artists in Edinburgh. He exhibited at the Society of Scottish Artists and at the Royal Scottish Academy through the mid-1940s. During the 51st Society of Scottish Artists exhibition his paintings were met with critical acclaim. In its review of the exhibition The Scotsman wrote that Żyw’s Mantelpiece, 1943 was “the most accomplished painting in the Exhibition”. Gillies’ still-life Buddleia and Roses was “sprawling and chaotic” in comparison!

However, in 1946 the true horrors of what had happened in Poland were emerging. For Żyw, public pleasing painting stopped abruptly.

13. An Teallach I, 1946-7 oil on canvas, 63.2 x 76.2 cm Provenance: The artist’s studio inventory number AZ108

14.The Dance, c. 1948 oil on canvas, 62 x 75 cm signed lower right Provenance: Private collection, East Lothian

In 1945 Żyw settled in Edinburgh and attempted to pick up the threads so brutally shredded by war, but he could not do so. Not only has his mood changed, so had the light around him. He began to experiment again, but this time not only with questions of technique. He was searching for a new vocabulary. All over Europe, and in America, artists were in turmoil, as they faced the need to reflect (or deliberately ignore) the ruination of the pre-war order. For a Pole, the ruination was total, with destruction of native land, culture, and in Żyw’s case as in so many others, his whole family. Żyw could do longer ignore the prescient modern art he had turned a blind eye to in Paris. By 1946 his colourful pre-war landscapes had given way to an agonised expression of bewildered, desperate, plaintive figure, quickly brushed in or sometimes squeezed directly from the tube. Żyw reached the peak of immediacy and direct communication between 1946 and 1949. These paintings demand active participation from the viewer, a quality never again absent from Żyw’s work. Douglas Hall, 1986

15. In Depth, 1948-9 oil on canvas, 61 x 50.8 cm signed centre right Provenance: The artist’s studio inventory number AZ156

16. Susannah, 1948-9 oil on canvas, 76.2 x 63.5 cm signed lower centre Exhibited: Aleksander Żyw. A Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings 1941 – 71, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, touring to Aberdeen Art Gallery, Dundee Museum & Art Gallery (organized by the Scottish Arts Council), 1972, cat. 21; Aleksander Żyw. An Exhibition of Drawings and Paintings, 1937 – 80, Peebles, Galashiels, Hawick, 1980, cat. 31 Provenance: The artist’s studio inventory number AZ165

17. Crystalline Pattern, 1950 oil on canvas, 76.2 x 63.5 cm signed verso Exhibited: Aleksander ŝyw, Festival Exhibition, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1957, cat. 7 Provenance: The artist’s studio inventory number AZ222

18. Blues, 1951 oil on canvas, 81 x 64.8 cm Provenance: The artist’s studio inventory number AZ243

In 1949 Żyw travelled to Italy where he had not visited been before the War. The trip engendered another change of direction in Żyw’s art, one which led him away from his personal form of Expressionism toward a more decorative style encompassing geometric forms and symbolic motifs. Strong colour returned to his work, which he often built up in multiple glazes.

Aleksander Żyw (1905 – 1995) 1905 Born in Lida, near Vilno, Poland, to parents Jacob and Leonie Żyw (Lida now in Belarus) 1911 Family moves to Warsaw 1922 – 1925 Reads Law and History of Art at Warsaw University 1926 – 1932 Studies at Warsaw Academy of Fine Art Parents Jacob and Leonie Żyw, c.1900

Self Portrait, c.1941

1932 Wins travelling scholarship and visits Austria, Dalmatia, Greece and Italy, mostly on foot 1934 Sets up a studio in Paris, France 1937 Extended painting trip to Italy 1939 Outbreak of World War Two and the invasion of Poland. Enlists in Polish Army in France. Serves as Sergeant in a 2nd Grenadier Regiment of the First Division of Grenadiers in the Maginot Line. Sees action at the Battle of Lagarde 1940 After the Fall of France the Polish Army was disbanded. Żyw escapes to unoccupied France, and by way of Spain, to UK 1941 On arriving in Britain, Żyw was directed to Scottish military camps at Biggar, Galashiels and Forfar, where a large part of the Polish Armed Forces in Britain was reforming

Żyw in his Edinburgh studio, c.1967

Aleksander, Michael and Adam Żyw, Dean Village c.1953

1941- 1946 Appointed War Artist to the 10th Armoured Brigade and later to the Polish 1st Armoured Division 1942 Published Poles in Uniform.

Sails aboard Polish destroyer ORP Piorun 1944 Landed with his Division at Arromanches, Normandy.

Recorded Campaign in France, Belgium and Holland. Manages to visit his pre-war Paris studio 2nd Grenadier Regiment of the First Division of Grenadiers, 1939

Earl Haig and Żyw at Harley Brothers Printing Press, 1958

1945 Published Edinburgh as the Artist Sees It. First solo exhibition at The Scottish Gallery, later exhibitions in 1950 and 1957 1946 Marries Leslie Goddard and settles in Dean Village, Edinburgh 1948 Son Adam is born. First solo exhibition in London, later exhibitions in1953 and 1958 1949 First post-war trip to Italy. First solo exhibition in Italy 1951 - 1958 Paints every summer at Lago de Garda 1951 Commissioned to paint a mural for the Steam Section of the Exhibition of Industrial Power in the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow. Son Michael is born. First solo exhibition in Paris, later exhibitions in 1952 and 1969

Żyw and Giovanni Benedetti, Lago di Garda, 1954

Aleksander Żyw at his studio in Desenzano, Italy, 1954

Żyw at Poggio Lamentano, 1977

1986 Major retrospective held at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art titled The Nature of Painting 1988 Major retrospective, Aleksander Żyw Opere 1949 – 1988, held in Parma, Italy 1991 Retrospective held at Desenzano, Italy. Exhibition of war drawings held at Polish Army Museum, Warsaw 1995 Died at his home in Castagneto Carducci

1961 Establishes second studio in Castagneto Carducci, Tuscany, Italy 1964 Starts to produce and export single estate extra virgin olive oil Poggio Lamentano 1967 Retrospective exhibition in Warsaw, organised by the Polish National Union of Artists. First visit to Poland in 30 years 1970 Moves permanently to Castagneto Carducci 1972 Retrospective exhibition of paintings is organised by The Scottish Arts Council which tours to Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee Warsaw Retrospective, 1967

Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition: ALEKSANDER ŻYW | BEFORE & AFTER 28 October - 25 November 2020 Exhibition can be viewed online www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/zyw ISBN: 978 1 912900 25 1 Designed by The Scottish Gallery Photography by John McKenzie Archive images courtesy of the artist’s family, with images by Ugo Mulas, Allan Stewart & Ronald Wilkie Printed by J. Thomson Colour Printers All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by print, photography or by any other means, without the permission of the copyright holders and of the publishers.

Inside covers: Crystalline Pattern, 1950, oil on canvas, 76.2 x 63.5 cm, cat. 17 (detail)

THE

SCOTTISH

GALLERY

CONTEMPORARY ART SINCE 1842 16 DUNDAS STREET • EDINBURGH EH3 6HZ +44 (0) 131 558 1200 • mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk • scottish-gallery.co.uk

THE

SCOTTISH

GALLERY

CONTEMPORARY ART SINCE 1842