Six framed canvasses stored one inside the other for lack of space in the painter's study comprise the series Na sprzedaż (For Sale) springing from the painter's exasperation with the ubiquitous misleading and aggressive advertising.
Their author is Wiesław Szamborski, born in 1941, a graduate of Warsaw's Academy of Fine Arts, whose works go on display at Opera Gallery on 17 May 2016. Szamborski is one of Poland's few representatives of new figuration in the late 1960s.
Szamborski went against the premises of socialist-realism and abstract art, both of which he considered artificial and cliché. The fundamental assumption of his art, shared by Marek Sapetto with whom he exhibited until 1974, was to render naked facts without needless commentary.
The Na sprzedaż series, whose each piece displays a paper price tag cut out from a newspaper, is a commentary in its own right. The exhibition features works selected by the author himself: whole series – such as Zgrana karta focusing on the figure of Marylin Monroe – and individual pieces.
Later in his artistic life, starting from the 1980s, the subject-matter of his paintings shifted to the nature and the artist's relationship with it. He would then render oceanic landscapes, gardens, mountains, and flowers. These too will be shown at Opera Gallery until 26 June 2016.
