Ladislas Kijno

The work

Work made in collaboration with Robert Combas

Interférence, triptyque
2007
106x260cm
Oil on canvas

In the field of non-realistic figurative art, the Polish artist Ladislas Kijno, in collaboration with Robert Combas, produced several joint works, of which this is an example.
Three female figures—or perhaps an evolution thereof—are depicted in profile in a caricature-like style close to a comic book. In each case, not only the protagonist’s face changes, but also the contents of the interior of the body, inhabited by diverse faces and shapes.
From the Romantic painters to Gauguin, Picasso, and Dubuffet, many artists have been drawn to primitivism for different reasons, whether due to the subject matter

The artist

(1921, Warsaw, Poland – 2012, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France)

Ladislas Kijno was born in Warsaw in 1921. He arrived in France in 1925 and produced his first works of art in the early 1940s while studying philosophy at the University of Lille. He founded the Cadran group in 1950 with Paul Gay, and devoted himself exclusively to painting from 1954. He moved to Paris in 1958. Kijno was appointed a member of the board of directors of the Salon de Mai (Paris)
After his early works, characters and violins, which he tirelessly revisits in pencil or watercolour, Kijno evolves towards abstraction. In search of new ways of expression, he constantly experiments. In the late 1940s, he perfects the technique of crumpled paper, later that of crumpled canvas, thereby giving relief to his surfaces. From then on, this will be a hallmark, a signature style in the artist’s work. His explorations will allow him to synthesise traditional painting techniques with industrial discoveries, particularly in the field of vapourisation and dyes.
Kijno also became passionate about the insertion of art into the environment and dedicated himself to mural art, creating important mosaics. He collaborated with numerous poets, after meeting Aragon and Ponge in 1943, and illustrated a large number of works.
Ladislas Kijno worked a great deal in series. He incessantly sought to abolish the divergences that opposed abstraction to figuration, creating a personal universe that uses signs and curves and seems to create a modern mythology. After his first solo exhibition at the Musée de l’Ile-Saint-Denis in 1957, his work was shown in more than a hundred exhibitions. Kijno’s art is present in the collections of numerous international museums.