Caziel Polish/British, 1906-1988
WC471 - Composition 09.51, 1951
Oil on board
71.5 x 51 cm
Signed and dated upper right
Signed and dated verso
Caziel Estate Inventory number WC471
Signed and dated verso
Caziel Estate Inventory number WC471
The Caziel Estate, Courtesy of Whitford Fine Art
1951 was a key year in Caziel's development as an abstractionist. Although his dedication to the Abstract cause was clear in his annual submissions to the Salon de Mai as...
1951 was a key year in Caziel's development as an abstractionist. Although his dedication to the Abstract cause was clear in his annual submissions to the Salon de Mai as of 1948, it was in 1951 that he told Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler that he could not exhibit at his gallery by explicitly stating: "Je suis abstrait" (“I am abstract”). It was also in 1951 that the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, purchased a monumental work of his.
'Composition 09.51' is a key work in Caziel's development from figuration to abstraction. For several years, Caziel had investigated the possibility of portraying the absence of a figure by erasing parts of it until he was left with only anthropomorphic shapes set against a black background.
Caziel's works are present in the collections of the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Vatican Museum, Rome; National Museum, Warsaw.
'Composition 09.51' is a key work in Caziel's development from figuration to abstraction. For several years, Caziel had investigated the possibility of portraying the absence of a figure by erasing parts of it until he was left with only anthropomorphic shapes set against a black background.
Caziel's works are present in the collections of the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Vatican Museum, Rome; National Museum, Warsaw.
Provenance
The Estate of the Artist.Exhibitions
2008, Caziel: 'Je Suis Abstrait'- Works from the Fifties, Whitford Fine Art, London; 2012, Caziel: In Search of a New Reality - Abstract Works 1948 - 1955, Whitford Fine Art, London; 2014, Caziel: Espace - Abstraction, Francis Maere Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium.
Literature
MONKIEWICZ, Dorota. Caziel 1906-1988, Catalogue Raisonné. National Museum, Warsaw, 1998, cat. no. 266, p. 53.' Caziel: 'Je Suis Abstrait' - Works from the Fifties, Whitford Fine Art, London, 2008, exhibition catalogue with introduction by An Jo FERMON, cat. no. 17, ill.; Caziel: In Search of a New Reality - Abstract Works 1948 - 1955, exhibition catalogue with introduction by Max STIEGLER, Whitford Fine Art, London, 2012, cat. no. 2, ill.
