About author – Fundacja Artystyczna im. Tadeusza Kalinowskiego

1909

Tadeusz Kalinowski was born on June 23 in Warsaw; his father, Konstanty, was a printer by profession

1925

started education in the School of Crafts and Applied Arts in Warsaw; by the time he started studying at the Warsaw Academy he worked in the Wielki Theatre, where he was an apprentice of the renowned set designer of this stage, Wincenty Drabik

1929

enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw; studied painting, set design and interior architecture under Mieczysław Kotarbiński and Władysław Daszewski, under whom he received a diploma in set design in 1937

1937

upon graduation he designed sets in the Łódź Theatre under Kazimierz Wroczyński and practised applied arts; e.g. was the chief designer of the National Fair in Rivne on Styr

1939

married Zofia Męczyńska, birth of son Bogdan

when World War II broke out he was in Lviv, where he came as a set designer with Leon Schillers theatre and where spent over a year, until the fall of 1940. He became a member of the Ukrainian Union of Artists and Designer and made a living by making propagandist placards and portraits of the leaders of the revolution

1942

lived in Miechów, where he worked in a stud farm

1943-1944

lived in Volhynia, which he left at the end of 1943 and in early 1944 returned to Warsaw, illegally crossing the border between Volhynia and the General Gouvernement. After the outbreak of the Warsaw Rising he fought in the ranks of the Home Army in the citys Old Town. Taken prisoner, he escaped from a transport to Auschwitz from the loading platform of Warszawa Gdańska railway station. He then collected his son Bogdan from a temporary camp in Pruszków, where the latter lived after the death of his mother, murdered by the Nazis in a hospital in Warsaws district of Wola. With his son he went on foot to Krakow, where he stayed a short time and left for Łódź, where he worked as a set designer during the first post-war performances by Leon Schiller (Bogusławskis Krakowiacy i górale, Shakespeares The Tempest)

1945-1948

lived in Łódź and Bydgoszcz, where he cooperated with Wilam Horzyca as a set designer; a series of Post-Formist paintings (A Girl Reading, Bride, Actors and Props, Ruins)

1948

moved to Poznań, where Horzyca became director of Teatr Polski. In the period 1948-1952 active in designing sets for many plays, e.g. Mrs Warrens Profession, The Bourgeois Nobleman, Macbeth

1949

became a member of the 4F + R group founded by Feliks Maria Nowowiejski, Ildefons Houwalt and Alfred Lenica; took part in the groups first exhibition

1950

became the President of the Board of the Poznań Division of the Union of Polish Artists and Designers, in office for two terms, until 1954. Thanks to his efforts, in this period (1951-1955) as many as 41 art studios were constructed and donated to artists in the Old Town in Poznań

1938-1956

realist paintings and prints

1953

married Helena Welnitz, whom he met in Łódź in 1946

1954-1955

designed and made the paintings of the Poznań City Hall (with Jan Piasecki)

1955

met Anna Cyronek, also a painter, who received a diploma in the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Poznań, his partner till the end of his life (they got married in 1979)

1956-1960

a councillor of the city of Poznań

1957

first attempts at Art Informel painting

1958-1962

a period of so-called trash-can art

1959

the first solo exhibition of prints in the SARP Club in Poznań; a show in the Działyński Palace (with Anna Cyronek); birth of son Adam to Anna Cyronek

1961-1966

a period of a keen interest in prints, three series of linocuts and lithographs

1961

a period of collage texture painting with pasted rags and newspaper illustrations

1962-1968

a period of so-called zone painting

1965-1975

a period of so-called hard geometrical abstraction, which he practised in many series of works, e.g. Flags, Circles, Arrows

1967-1968

a series of objects/paintings, where shining and flickering lamps, bottle caps, etc. were built into an abstract composition

1967-1976

solo exhibitions in the Salon of the Union of Polish Artists and Designers (ZPAP) Arsenał (with Anna Cyronek, 1967 and 1968), Merkury Tradesmans Club (1969), Galeria A in Gniezno (1969), Art Exhibition Office (BWA) Arsenał (1971), International Press and Books Club (MPiK) (1975), BWA in Zielona Góra (with Anna Cyronek, 1975), BWA Arsenał in Poznań (1976)

1970

participated in the V March Salon in Zakopane

1972

an abstract composition, size 546 m2, on a wall of a house at the intersection of Estkowskiego and Garbary Streets in Poznań; damaged in the mid-1980s

1972-1981

wall advertisements for PKO bank, with the use of fragments of the artist’s own paintings

1976

a short period of interest in ornamental painting, since 1956 the only attempt at object painting

1976-1977

first paintings with letters

1976-1980

a period of a kaleidoscopic series

1981

a suite Elements with a series Painting – Object

1982-1988

a suite Open Circuits

1984

an exhibition of works from the Open Circuits suite in Galeria Akumulatory 2 in Poznań and in Galeria RR in Warsaw

1984-1994

anniversary exhibitions in Arsenał, commemorating successive birthdays (1984 75th anniversary, 1989 80th anniversary, 1994 the last show, 85th anniversary)na 85-lecie)

1986

participated in the show Poznań Artists 1945-1985 at the invitation of curator Wojciech Makowiecki in the National Museum and Galeria BWA, where his works were displayed in three sections: 4F+R Group, Abstraction and the Art of the Idea

1987

a recording of an interview of Wojciech Makowiecki with the artist for the Raczyński Library (VHS tape, 1’40”)

1988-1997

last works from the Open Circuits suite, series Multilateral Circuits and Closed Circuits

1993

an exhibition Vector of Art in Arsenał with the participation of leading modern artists: Jerzy Bereś, Andrzej Bereziański, Anna Cyronek, Stanisław Fijałkowski, Stefan Gierowski, Jerzy Jękot, Zdzisław Jurkiewicz, Jerzy Kałucki, Jarosław Kozłowski, Erna Rosenstein

1997

Tadeusz Kalinowski was active as an artist until his last days; he died on May 7 in Poznań, where he was buried in the Alley of Fame of Junikowski Cemetery

photos:

1
C. 1949, the time of 4F+R

2
On the scaffolding at the City Hall, while painting images of monarchs, 1954

3
Set design for the play
The Promotion of W. Żółkiewski, Teatr
Polski in Poznań, 1952

4
Set design for the play
Xanthippes Defence, Teatr Polski
in Bydgoszcz, 1947

5
Projekt scenografii do spektaklu
Profesja pani Warren, Teatr
Polski w Poznaniu, 1950

6
Set design for the play
Mrs Warrens Profession, Teatr
Polski in Poznań, 1950

7
Landscape of Bolkowo, 1956,
woodcut, 22.5 × 29.5 cm

8
C. 1955

9
With Anna Cyronek in the studio, 1958

10
With son Adaś, 1960

11
In Galeria A in Gniezno, 1969

12
At an opening of a solo show
in the ZPAP Club with Andrzej
Turowski, Irena Modarska,
Jerzy Nowakowski, 1971

13
At an opening of a solo show
in BWA Arsenał with Józef Krzyżański,
Maria and Jan Berdyszak and
Jerzy Nowakowski, 1971

14
Fragment of a solo exhibition in Arsenał, 1971

15
With sons Bogdan and Adam
in Zygmunt Konarskis studio, 1979

16
At an opening of a solo show
of Andrzej Bereziański
in Galeria Akumulatory II
(with Jarosław Kozłowski), 1977

17
In the studio, 1985

18
Exhibition in Arsenał, 1989

19
In the studio
at 7/8 Wielkopolski Square, 1994

20
One of the last photos, in front of the basilica in Gostyń, 1996