Tadeusz Makowski, WOMAN WITH BIRDS, 1920

47.5 x 65.2 cm - oil, board

Signed p.d.: Makowski | 920
On the reverse, number (in white paint): 19; in addition, auction stickers.

The painting belonged to one of the most prominent logicians - Alfred (Tajtelbaum) Tarski (1901-1983). Born and educated in Warsaw, he moved to the United States in 1939, before the outbreak of war itself, where he settled permanently. He was the creator of the theory of models and the semantic definition of truth.

Woman with Birds is dated 1920 by the artist. In the summer of that year Makowski was in the charming village of Espaly near Le Puy, where he had been vacationing since 1918. Before that, the artist had traveled to Brittany, to his friend and mentor Wladyslaw Slewinski. After his death in the spring of 1918, Makowski, decided to change his surroundings. In a letter to Wienczyslawowa d'Erceville dated September 1, 1920, he wrote: I have never been troubled about what to paint, because there is something in my heart like that - but I am always worried about how to paint. Perhaps someday at last I will gain a firm step. These are my sorrows, which please do not mention to anyone. Vacation is already coming to an end, in a dozen days or so you will have to think about packing things and leaving. But I will be busy until the last minute, for that a lot of studies, sketches drawings and watercolors. Counting everything together it grows to the number of 80 past pieces. A lot of it is drawings [...] relatively little landscape. I have two larger things, one of which La Bourree d'Auvergne. I tried not to think about formulas and to work with all the pleasure of paint and pencil. (W. Jaworska, Tadeusz Makowski. Polish painter in Paris, p. 96)

The painting mentioned in the letter - La Bourrée d'Auvergne - is kept in the same, rather dark range of colors and style as the Woman with Birds presented above. This means that it was most likely also created during Makowski's summer stay in Espaly, where the artist painted genre scenes of village life. As he wrote in his diary: Again before nature I stand like a child, and with naiveté I try to imitate faithfully what I see, looking at it more and more deeply and wanting more and more to tear from it what it charms everyone with the most - Life. (T. Makowski, Memoir, p. 234)

The painting also bears many features in common with Self-Portrait with a Girl, which we presented at auction in December 2019. The same brownish-red color scheme, interspersed with blue tones, and the simplification of the shapes and physiognomy of the figures depicted - are characteristic of Makowski's works from the period around 1920-1922.



Bibliography:

- W. Jaworska, Tadeusz Makowski. The Polish Painter in Paris, Wrocław-Warszawa-Kraków 1976;

- T. Makowski, Memoirs, Warsaw 1961.

Tadeusz Makowski (Oświęcim 1882 - Paris 1932) - painter, graphic artist; studied painting with Jozef Mehoffer and Jan Stanislawski at the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts from 1903-1908. During his studies he traveled to Venice, after graduation he went to Paris and stayed there permanently. During World War I, he stayed in Brittany, befriending Władysław Ślewiński. In 1916 he returned to Paris, from where he traveled to Auvergne, Holland and Belgium. In his early works he was inspired by the paintings of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. Between 1912 and 1915, his fascination with Cubism is evident in his paintings, and later he was also inspired by old Dutch painting and Polish folk art. Over time, the artist simplified the form more and more, arriving at the creation of "his own system of plastic signs." He especially often painted children, in his later period also old people, and was always keen on flowers and landscapes. He exhibited a lot in France, while at home he was not particularly well known. The only major exhibition of his works was held in 1936 at the Warsaw Institute of Art Propaganda. Today he is considered one of the most interesting Polish painters of the interwar period. His work, thoroughly researched and discussed in studies by Prof. W. Jaworska, was presented in 1960 at a monographic exhibition at the National Museum in Warsaw, at an exhibition in 1990/1991 presented in Bochum and the National Museum in Warsaw and at a recent exhibition at the Silesian Museum in Katowice and again at the Museum in Warsaw.