Objects

„There’s a lot of print between a painting and a viewer” said Artur Nacht-Samborski (J. Stajuda, „Artur Nacht-Samborski (I)”, Miesięcznik Literacki, 1977, no. 9, p. 77). Let us try to follow with our words his intriguing Portretem kobiety wśród liści [Portrait of a Woman Among Leaves] painted c. 1966. It is one of the paintings in which the two most important motifs, reappearing throughout the years in his post-war works, combine: plants and human faces. The intensity of artistic measures only enhances the mood and psychological message of this disturbing, but seemingly calm, female image. Or perhaps „still life” with a human figure would be a more suitable description. Sophisticated colours, oozing energy, and despite the stillness of the woman’s eyes and silhouette, the dramatics of this painting are amplified by the power of its background – the green thicket of leaves. After Artur Nacht-Samborski’s grand show organised by the National Musem in Poznan in 1999, Dorota Jarecka wrote: „Flowers in his painting show characteristics of plant life not even as animal-like but as human-like. (…) He is interested not only in jigsaws of patterns and colours but in something more – in a human being” (D. Jarecka, „Cierpkie bukiety”, Gazeta Wyborcza, 03.17.1999). The portrait from POLIN collection belongs to those which induced Andrzej Kostołowski’s words: „The spectrum of heads and figures painted by Nacht seems to unveil a vast territory of human fate through multiple depictions of individual existence” (A. Kostołowski, „Portrety losu”, in: Artur Nacht-Samborski. Portrety, Warszawa 2002, p. 12).

Donated by the artist’s family

Renata Piatkowska