Page 19 - Studio International - September 1974

Henryk Stajewski
Composition 1930
Oil on canvas, 6o x 73 cm

remain the same. We couldn't solve many of the
artistic problems we undertook then. Often we
discussed the problem of 'the death of art'.
Mondrian said that painting was over and an
artist as a representative of art and creator of
works of art wouldn't be needed any more as
everybody would be experiencing art personally.
We could not solve that problem; but present
day youth already knows how to do it.
WB: In artistic disputes you often criticized
certain principles and elements in the works of
some artists, i.e. Mondrian's. On the other hand
you were blamed because you were employing
forms in your compositions originating both
from a square and a circle which — according to
the principles then — was disagreeable. What
were your arguments?
HS: Well, one has doubts concerning even his
masters or should I say first of all concerning
them. Together with Vantongerloo we discussed
the question of Mondrian's compositions in
which colour squares were separated from each
other by a contour of black line. It was, in my
opinion, a rather artificial 'auxiliary' skeleton
without which the composition would break up.
As to the elements of circle and square in my
paintings : I did not see any contradiction in
them considering that both the circle and the
square were combined into one form; then
you've got a square or a rectangle with rounded
corners or any other combination. But I didn't
employ the elements of a circle and a square
separately, side by side.
WB: Most of your pre-war paintings have been
destroyed.
HS: Yes, it happened during the war when the
house at Zlota Street in Warsaw where I lived
then, was destroyed by a bomb. Only some
paintings which were stored in a museum in young artists and critics. Also the first forms in each painting were identical and
Lodz survived. information on art from the outside world had resulted from the combination of a square or a
WB: The war and post-war period up to 1955 reached us. Within the next few years I was rectangle with a circle and in the beginning they
was a lay-off in your work. Was it mainly a trying to find a timely way for my art. It was not were similar to a longitudinal profile of a barrel
result of poor living conditions or a feeling of easy considering the complete changes painting in shape. Their position in the painting however
isolation and `lack of perspective' ? was undergoing: informal, structural art, was completely free, deprived of any features of
HS: It was both. I can't work in isolation. formally strange to me, Pollock whom I geometrical, metaphorical or any other
WB: In the years following 1955, when the appreciated extremely and the 'geometrical' composition. You have called those paintings
development of modern trends in Polish art was Vasarely who was very popular but whom I `white reliefs'.
being reconstructed and international didn't admire. So I started thinking of a way to HS: Yes, when I decided upon a multiple
connections restored, you started painting eliminate or at least reduce the importance of repetition of the same form in the painting, and
again and began your first relief compositions. form in painting. elimination of colour I had at the same time to
HS: Well, yes, after a long interval there was WB: Since 1959 you started creating paintings free myself from any principles of composition.
again the possibility of working. In 1955 I had which were a bit astonishing both in the context When one deals with a homogeneous series on
my first post-war exhibition in the Warsaw of tendencies dominating art at that time and form then one can only produce a mechanical
Writers Club. I was also awarded the Golden also in the context of your own work of the composition or its negation. In both cases you
Cross of Merit which was a little surprising constructivist period. You were placing wooden leave the traditional understanding of
considering the ten year interval in my work. forms of a certain thickness against a flat composition far behind. I was more interested
However I was approached by a number of background painting everything in white. The in the mechanical form than in mechanical

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