Kazimierz Mikulski, NIGHT ON THE LYSEY MOUNTAIN, 1982

72.0 x 60.0 cm - oil, canvas

signed on the reverse on canvas p.g.: KMikulski | Krakow 1982, middle l.: "Night on Bald Mountain" on g. loom strip: 60 x 72 [crossed out] 72 x 60 s 11 [in circle].

Image exhibited, reproduced and described:

- Kazimierz Mikulski painting, drawing, collage, exhibitions: BWA Łódź April-May 1987, Galeria Współczesna Toruń July 1987, Arsenał Poznań August-September 1987, BWA Płock October 1987, Salon Sztuki Współczesnej Bydgoszcz December 1987, Galeria Awangarda Wrocław January 1988, p. nlb, cat. pos. 191, il. p.-b. [described under the title Walpurgisnacht];
- Kazimierz Mikulski. Painting, published by Desa Unicum, Warsaw 2000, p. 94, color ill;
- Image shown in the 1997 film directed by Irena Wollen, Kazimierz Mikulski's Silent World.



Mikulski developed an original kind of painting in the mid-1950s. He created the first authentic Polish version of surrealism. While not orthodoxly respecting the principles of mental automatism (Andre Breton), anti-aestheticism and anti-artistic stance - he nevertheless sought emotional expression in the unexpected confrontation of objects, figures, situations not usually combined, operating with the emptiness of vast spaces and the atmosphere of disturbing presence so characteristic of Surrealism. The dominant features of his work, however, were poetics, lyricism, the warmth of intimacy, and discretion in conveying emotion. Again, these were those characteristics that were significant, and decisive for the specificity of Polish surrealism divested of brutality, sadism, horror present in Linke's work, as in the work of surrealists such as Ernst, Dali, Magritte or even Delvaux.

Bożena Kowalska, Polish Avant-garde Painting. Opportunities and Myths, Warsaw 1988, p. 132.

In the painting shown here, Kazimierz Mikulski reached for subject matter alluding to Slavic legends. The Bald Mountain of the title is a place where, according to tradition, there were rallies of witches, who met at the top of the mountain to confer, play and enchant together.

The painting was also known under the title Walpurgisnacht. In Germany, Walpurgisnacht was also associated with witches. It was believed that on this one night, in addition to wraiths, one could meet gnomes, goblins, gnomes and mermaids - and if one met such a creature, one had the chance to receive from it the gift of extraordinary wisdom or courage.

♣ 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 Act of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite)

Kazimierz Mikulski (Krakow 1918 - Krakow 1998) began his studies in painting before World War II at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, and continued them from 1939 to 1940 under Prof. Fryderyk Pautsch at the Kunstgewerbeschule, established during the occupation in place of the Academy. After the war, he completed two years of acting studies at the Drama Studio at the Old Theater in Cracow and worked as an actor until 1948. At the same time, in 1945, he graduated from the Youth Film Workshop. From 1948 to 1979 he was the art director and set designer of the Groteska Theater in Cracow, for which he designed puppets, costumes, decorations, etc. At the same time, all the time he was engaged in painting and activity in the circle of Tadeusz Kantor, at first as a member of the Young Visual Artists Group, and from 1957 in the Cracow Group, of which he was co-founder and president in 1965-1967. He was also a member of the Cricot 2 theater company, and played in the productions Water Hen, Nadobnisie i koczkodany, Dead Class and in his own play Circus. In his paintings from the second half of the 1940s, the artist depicted light, linear forms floating in empty spaces. It was a painting that was both surrealistic and abstract. But already ca. 1950 he began to paint in his characteristic way - rejecting abstraction, he presented countless variants and arrangements of several favorite motifs (head or figure of a woman-doll, cats, butterflies).