Adrian Daintrey

1902 - 1988

A Note From The Collector

I came across Gotlib’s work through Ruszkowski. They were friends and , for a short time, taught  art together in Hampstead. It was rare to hear Ruszkowski compliment a contemporary painter, however, he had the greatest respect for Gotlib’s talent and artistic integrity. He is an important figure in Polish Art of the 20th century,  but being a figurative painter, he has been largely ignored in the last few decades, as tastes veered
 towards abstract art. His time will come, I’m sure of that. Maybe not in my lifetime, but certainly when core values are re-established in the world of art.

Michael Simonow,

Biography

Gotlib was born into a middle-class family in Krakow  in 1890, where he gained his earliest artistic training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow  from 1908 to 1910. Due to pressure from his parents, he also read law at the university in Krakow during this period, although it was clear from an early age that he had a profound passion for art. His earliest portraits of his mother, in which he experimented with a variety of styles including that of Vuillard  and late Cubism , date back to when he was just 16 years old.

He continued his artistic training at the Kunstgewerbeschule  in Vienna (1911–13) and later at the Munich  Academy of Fine Art under Angelo Jank (1913–14). It was during this period that he was exposed to European Expressionist  masters, falling under the influence of expressionists like Max Beckmann  and Egon Schiele.

During his lifetime, Gotlib exhibited extensively throughout Europe with much success. His first one-man show - in Warsaw in 1918 - was organised by the Society of Polish Artists whom he joined at the end of World War I. The following year, Gotlib returned to Krakow and became a leading member of the Polish avant-garde ‘Formist’ movement, exhibiting in Berlin, Amsterdam and Paris. In 1922, the Van Gogh Gallery in Amsterdam held a one-man exhibition of his work.

He lived in France, mainly in Paris, during the years 1923 through 1929, when he participated in exhibitions at the Salon d'Automne   and the Salon des Indépendants . In 1930, he joined the Group of Ten after returning to Poland, where he remained until 1933. He went travelling once more from 1933, spending long periods in Italy, Greece and Spain, and met his wife in 1938 during a visit to London. With the outbreak of World War II shortly after this, Gotlib settled in England, where he remained until his death. During his first year in England, Gotlib was invited to join the London Group , which had no foreign members at that time. This was a great honour, indeed an indication of his prolific talent as a painter.

Gotlib was also a talented writer. During his years in Paris he was art correspondent to the Warsaw Times, and his book Polish Painting was published in 1942. It tells us of his contemporary Polish artists and Polish artists through the ages. Polish Painting also provides some information of the ‘Formist’ movement, and includes a detail of his painting Warsaw, September 1959 that he was moved to paint after the German army attacked Warsaw. In the same year that this book was published, Gotlib participated in several important exhibitions in Britain, including ‘Exhibition of Works of Polish and Czechoslovak Artists', at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. He exhibited extensively in Britain from 1940 onwards and examples of his work can be found in many public collections including: The Tate Gallery, The National Portrait Gallery, The Arts Council,  The Courtauld Gallery, and The National Museum of Wales. His work is represented in Polish museums and Galleries as well as in private collections throughout the world. He died in Surrey in 1966.