WOJCIECH FANGOR (1922-2015)

Wojciech FANGOR (Polish, born 1922 in Warsaw), is one of the most outstanding Polish painters. He debuted in 1949 with an individual show at the Young Artists and Scholars Club Gallery in Warsaw. Fangor is the creator of the world's first environment art, titled A Study of Space, arranged by the artist together with his friend, architect Stanislaw Zamecznik, in 1958 at the New Culture Salon in Warsaw. Fangor's paintings also focus on the problem of space. In the years 1966 and 1999, Fangor lived in the United States. He was professor at the painting department at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. Fangor is the only Polish artist to have been invited to and participated in the famous international exhibition The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965, and the only Polish artist to have had, in 1970, an individual exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. After 1975, Fangor returned to figurative painting. A major exhibition of the artist's works was held at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw in 2003.