Ladislas Kijno

Biographical Data

Born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1921. He lives and works in Saint Germain en Laye, near París. Ladislas Kijno emigrates with his family to northern France in 1925. He studies philosophy at the University of Lille (1942-1946), in 1947 he continues his education in Germaine Richier’s studio. His first individual exhibition takes place in 1954. That same year he becomes one of the cofounders of the Cadran group and, in 1958, the same year he moves to Paris, member of the committee of the Salon de Mai. In 1980 he represents France at the Venice Biennale. Died in 2012.

Brief Chronology

At the end of the 50’s, Ladislas Kijno begins experimenting with a very personal plastic language, that mixes investigation and poetry. His paintings are inhabited by abstract forms, most of the time red or black that penetrate each other. At the beginning his art work is non-figurative but in the 80’s he starts adding representational elements. Kijno experiments with matter and develops a method of creasing paper and crumbling canvases that will be his signature. An activist both for human rights and for artist rights he declares: “For the votive and fraternal celebration of the liberation of the people, the greatest and poorest; I may be a non westerner, I, the émigré, the exiled, the heterodox, always a dissident, a painter of the mixed races, of syncretism”. He has illustrated beautiful poetry books by Aragon, Francis Ponge or André Verdet. He works on public commissions like the creation of a Last Supper for the crypt of the Assy church or the rose window for the Lille cathedral (1990-1999).

P.L.T.

Combas_Kijno

Interférence, triptyque, 2007, Oil on canvas, 106 x 260 cm / 41,7 x 102,3 in.