DOI Artikel:
Danielewicz, Iwona: The Collection of Gabriela Zapolska
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18947#0138
experimenting with painting techniąues, most freąuently using oil tempera
combined with glue pigments. He did not ground his paintings but applied
pigment directly to the canvas, which after a few years became difficult to
preserve. He wanted to achieve an effect close to fresco painting, and this
explains the mat ąuality of the colours and the even application of the paint
without indication of brushstrokes. Serusier s works were the core of Gabriela
Zapolska’s collection, and belonged to the most important, most interesting,
and most creative period of his artistic work. In the introduction to the
catalogue of the Lwów exhibition, Zapolska wrote: “Pride of place belongs to
Paul Serusier, who extraordinarily ąuickly discovered his individuality - and
with the immense power of simple means brings forth enormous expression.
His paintings are a harmony of colours, striking in the exquisite application
of their patches of colour, perfect in their spiritual expression.”7 Other works
by the artist in Zapolska’s possession until 1921 are known only by their titles.
Toreb Procession, Pilgrimage, Eve, Cottages in Brittany, Rebecca, and Red
Forest. s The last painting was exhibited at the Salon des Artists Independents
in 1895. j Works by Georges Lacombe were also displayed at the same
exhibition, of which Snów belonged to Zapolska’s collection.Ml
Other works in her collection included a smali composition on cardboard
by Edward Vuillard, Woman in a Garden, purchased by the National Museum
in 1986 (iii. 6).sl Zapolska must have meet Vuillard during the period of her
performances at the Theatre Librę, or in the Theatre de l’Oeuvre. He created
a poster for the play Monsieur Butę, which Antoine’s troupe performed at the
end of 1894. Vuillard was also the set designer during the first two seasons of
the Theatre de l’Ouevre, where plays by Ibsen, Strindberg, and Hauptmann
were performed. Perhaps Zapolska received the painting as a present from the
artist. It belongs to the period of the crystallisation of Vuillard’s individual
painting style and represents all the essential artistic elements of Nabis’ artistic
ideas: paint applied to an unprepared surface, revealing in places the colour
and texture of the picture surface, a limited rangę of colours, smali and rather
fiat, mosaic-like clusters of brushstrokes.
Czachowska relates that Zapolska’s sister attempted to sell several works
in 1923. Among them was Pissarro’s Bois de Boulogne after Rain, probably
sold at auction at Warsaw’s Dom Sztuki in the first half of that year.82 The
Biuletyn Domu Sztuki contains this information: “Today no one exhibits
foreign art sińce the Krywult Salon closed. Thus it was something strange that
the Warsaw public viewed the painting by Camille Pisarro [sic] exhibited at
the Dom Sztuki as if it were an mtrusion disturbing the peace of easy
orientation, as if non-Polish works of the 19th century repulse and go beyond
11 Publicystyka, op. cit., III, p. 317.
78 Cf. fn. 62.
79 Guichteau, op. cit., p. 172.
80 Cf. KatalogXIVWystawy..., op. cit.
81 33.5 x 20 cm, signed and dated: S ev 91, inv. no.M.Ob. 1222.
82 Czachowska, Gabriela Zapolska, op. cit., p. 333.
132
combined with glue pigments. He did not ground his paintings but applied
pigment directly to the canvas, which after a few years became difficult to
preserve. He wanted to achieve an effect close to fresco painting, and this
explains the mat ąuality of the colours and the even application of the paint
without indication of brushstrokes. Serusier s works were the core of Gabriela
Zapolska’s collection, and belonged to the most important, most interesting,
and most creative period of his artistic work. In the introduction to the
catalogue of the Lwów exhibition, Zapolska wrote: “Pride of place belongs to
Paul Serusier, who extraordinarily ąuickly discovered his individuality - and
with the immense power of simple means brings forth enormous expression.
His paintings are a harmony of colours, striking in the exquisite application
of their patches of colour, perfect in their spiritual expression.”7 Other works
by the artist in Zapolska’s possession until 1921 are known only by their titles.
Toreb Procession, Pilgrimage, Eve, Cottages in Brittany, Rebecca, and Red
Forest. s The last painting was exhibited at the Salon des Artists Independents
in 1895. j Works by Georges Lacombe were also displayed at the same
exhibition, of which Snów belonged to Zapolska’s collection.Ml
Other works in her collection included a smali composition on cardboard
by Edward Vuillard, Woman in a Garden, purchased by the National Museum
in 1986 (iii. 6).sl Zapolska must have meet Vuillard during the period of her
performances at the Theatre Librę, or in the Theatre de l’Oeuvre. He created
a poster for the play Monsieur Butę, which Antoine’s troupe performed at the
end of 1894. Vuillard was also the set designer during the first two seasons of
the Theatre de l’Ouevre, where plays by Ibsen, Strindberg, and Hauptmann
were performed. Perhaps Zapolska received the painting as a present from the
artist. It belongs to the period of the crystallisation of Vuillard’s individual
painting style and represents all the essential artistic elements of Nabis’ artistic
ideas: paint applied to an unprepared surface, revealing in places the colour
and texture of the picture surface, a limited rangę of colours, smali and rather
fiat, mosaic-like clusters of brushstrokes.
Czachowska relates that Zapolska’s sister attempted to sell several works
in 1923. Among them was Pissarro’s Bois de Boulogne after Rain, probably
sold at auction at Warsaw’s Dom Sztuki in the first half of that year.82 The
Biuletyn Domu Sztuki contains this information: “Today no one exhibits
foreign art sińce the Krywult Salon closed. Thus it was something strange that
the Warsaw public viewed the painting by Camille Pisarro [sic] exhibited at
the Dom Sztuki as if it were an mtrusion disturbing the peace of easy
orientation, as if non-Polish works of the 19th century repulse and go beyond
11 Publicystyka, op. cit., III, p. 317.
78 Cf. fn. 62.
79 Guichteau, op. cit., p. 172.
80 Cf. KatalogXIVWystawy..., op. cit.
81 33.5 x 20 cm, signed and dated: S ev 91, inv. no.M.Ob. 1222.
82 Czachowska, Gabriela Zapolska, op. cit., p. 333.
132