Franciszek Starowieyski, APUD AMAS ARS, 1979

221.5 x 148.5cm - pastel, light brown paper on both sides of the figure marks: left: 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 5A. | 6. | 7., on the right: O. | K. | U. | R. | W. | a.
Closer to the figure on the l. at hip height a sequence of numbers in red crayon: 1. 2. 3., below a string of letters in white crayon: A. H. U. | J. A. Z. SH. A., below, at knee height in red crayon: 4., next to: 6. 7. 8. [in oval], at knee height in gray crayon: apud amas ars, below signature with date: 16 FS 79, under parts of date l.: NEW, p.: YORK

on verso l.g. sticker of Aberbach Fine Art gallery, New York, with details of work [title: Untitled], below (half height) mpis and dlg. sticker: 12. THE LADY WITH THE | WINGS IS FLYING ABOVE US | [further mpis:] 871" x 58" | 1979, in p.g. corner dlg. vert: S. rear



Franciszek Starowieyski - erudite, colorful and uncommon figure, in his art he combined sensual forms with intellectual message, irony and often blunt sense of humor.

The title, reminiscent of a Latin maxim - APUD AMAS ARS - is a kind of palindrome. It reveals its opposite meaning to the noble Latin when the individual words are read backwards. The fact that the painting was created during the artist's stay in New York (in connection with his solo exhibition at the Aberbach Gallery on Madison Avenue) raises the assumption that Starowieyski-the-mocker thus mocked the American public, for whom both Latin (despite the snobbish aspirations of some) and Polish are inaccessible. The eloquence of the work is complemented by the meaning that "Latin" has in colloquial Polish.

♣ to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, will be added a fee resulting from the right of the creator and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Law of February 4, 1994 - on copyright and related rights (droit de suite)

Franciszek Starowieyski (Bratkówka near Krosno 8 July 1930 - Warsaw 23 II 2009), using the pseudonym Jan Byk, studied from 1949 to 1952 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow under Prof. Wojciech Weiss , after which he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, receiving his diploma in the studio of Prof. Michał Bylina in 1955. In the 1960s and 1970s, he gained the greatest recognition as a poster artist, in which he quickly rivaled the coryphaeuses of this art in Poland. He cultivated a poster of the author's type, with a recognizable style based on sweeping and at the same time calligraphic drawing, and above all surprising, surreal associations. From 1964 he was the art director of the fashionable monthly magazine "You and Me." With time, the predominance in his achievements gained "pure" drawing, since 1980 often presented in the form of dynamic sessions of the so-called "Theater of Drawing", with the participation of models, audience and the artist himself, fulfilling in it the role of demiurge. He created many painting and drawing compositions emanating a surreal atmosphere of life on the verge of physical decay, being a contemporary version of the vanitas theme. Fascinated by Baroque culture, the artist has been anti-dating all his works by 300 years since 1970. The artist was the recipient of numerous awards, which he won at such exhibitions as the Sao Paulo Art Biennale 1973, the International Film Poster Exhibition, Cannes 1974, the "Annual Key Award", Los Angeles 1978, among others. He was in New York on several occasions at the invitation of the Kosciuszko Foundation. In 1980 he was a professor at the Berliner Hochschule der Künste, in the 1990s he taught at the European Academy of Arts in Warsaw.