oil, canvas
81 x 65 cm
Signed and dated p. d.: M.OBERLANDER 1962
On the reverse, on the stretcher bar, inscription: M Oberlander | Figure in tones of red and pink, on the canvas a Desa sticker with handwritten information in German: Marek Oberlander | Gestalt in Siena Tönung | 1961 | 80 x 60.
Marek Oberländer was born in 1922 in Szczerzec and died in 1978 in Nice.
During World War II, he served as a forced soldier in the Red Army. After the end of hostilities, he enrolled in the High School of Fine Arts in Warsaw, and from 1948 studied at the capital's Academy of Fine Arts, including under Marek Wlodarski. He received his diploma in 1953.
The artist was co-organizer of the All-Polish Exhibition of Young Visual Arts "Against War, Against Fascism" at the Warsaw Arsenal (1955), which was important for Polish art history. At the exhibition, the painter showed his works , mainly related to Jewish themes.
In 1956, the artist founded the showroom "Simply" and managed it for five years until its closure. In the following years he collaborated with "Współczesność" and "Nowa Kultura". In 1963, the artist traveled to France.
The main theme that Marek Oberländer dealt with in his work was the human being, his mental condition and existential sense, laden with an extraordinary emotional charge. In his early period he painted formally sparing, simplified compositions that were part of the trend of so-called expressive realism. By the end of the 1950s, Oberländer's art features an increasingly far-reaching deformation and synthesis of the human figure, which will eventually be reduced to a kind of plastic sign built from spots, lines and drippings of paint or ink. After 1964, he created almost abstract works with very fluid, "spilled" contours. Marek Oberländer slowly began to move away from human issues and focused more on landscape issues.
The artist exhibited at home and abroad, including Paris and Stockholm. The largest collection of Mark Oberländer's works is in the collection of the National Museum in Wroclaw - the artist donated much of his work there before leaving Poland.
