EXPLANATION (November 2010)

The period of fantasy painting from the year 1968, when Beksiński started to paint, till the first half of the 1980s, was the most prolific in his life. At that time he was at the height of his physical powers and, as he confessed, could paint as many as forty pictures a year. As the artist grew older, this number decreased, reaching approximately 25 at the beginning of the 80s and about 20 pictures towards the end of his life.

This resulted from the loss of stamina, but was also the question of searching for a form. In the fantasy period these searches did not absorb the Master so much. At that time the most important for him was the atmosphere which he wanted to create in each of his paintings as well as a joke, persiflage or painter’s allusion. He expressed all that with requisites or colours. When in the middle of the 80s he parted with fantasy landscapes, the issues related to pure form became increasingly important. And here, as he stated himself, the searches were more difficult, longer and more absorbing. That is why, at the beginning of the 80s the annual number of paintings began to drop.

Until today I have presented more than one hundred paintings from the fantasy period, which I managed to photograph when Beksiński was still alive. At that time I told my photographer to travel throughout Poland, to the addresses of purchasers indicated by Beksiński, and take big, colourful slides (ektachromes) of each picture.

The works which I was not able to get so that they could be photographed had been already abroad (in the 70s, before I met Beksiński, he had three exhibitions in Germany during which he sold about a hundred of pictures) or stayed with Polish purchasers, who were however unknown to Beksiński (at the same time he sold through the agency of the state-owned company “DESA” or through Warsaw galleries). I borrowed from him all his black-and-white negatives (having finished a given painting, the artist used to photograph it, unfortunately not in colour, but black and white) and ordered good prints to be made for me.

One evening in 1986 or 87, I sat in front of the Master and showed him all the prints, asking him to specify the size, paint (oil or acrylic) or at least the approximate date of each painting shown in a given photograph. Besides, I asked him who he had sold the paintings to, what the colours of the painting were and what associations, memories and anecdotes were related to each of them. As he commented, I noted everything in pencil on the reverse of each photograph. Beksiński was frequently hesitant when trying to remember the exact date of one painting or another, whereas the sizes and colour tonality he remembered perfectly well.

Today I would like to supplement the 10th Room with some pictures from that fantasy period, photographed in black and white. There are more than one hundred and twenty new pictures. I arranged them in the same way as the colour reproductions, that is, first heads, followed by figures, crucifixions and finally, animals. Within each category I kept a chronological order wherever Beksiński was able to quote at least approximate dates of the paintings.

I would like to add that I have many other black-and-white photographs of the works dating from the fantasy period, but for the time being I am not publishing them. Why? Perhaps the reason is that I don’t like them so much, or maybe because Beksiński himself described them as less successful. In the future I might publish all of them.

(November 2010)