Untitled “KIJNO”

After growing up in modest circumstances, he studied philosophy, notably with Jean Grenier, then attended Germaine Richier’s studio in the postwar years. Based in the Paris region since the late 1950s, Ladislas Kijno, over the decades, made extensive use of paint spraying and established himself as one of the masters of the so-called crumpling technique. His meeting with Louis Aragon and Francis Ponge in 1943 also led him to collaborate extensively with poets.

Countless tributes feature in his creations: Nicolas de Staël, Nelson Mandela, Galileo and then Gagarin; as well as struggles alongside the Algerian and Vietnamese peoples, and Tahiti, China and Easter Island. He took part in the Venice Biennale in 1980. In the 1990s, he worked on the rose window for the portal of Notre-Dame de la Treille in Lille, completed nine years later.

The painter Ladislas Kijno, 91, of Polish origin and based in France since the 1920s, died in 2012. Considered one of the major artists of the 20th century and one of the masters of abstraction, and a specialist in the techniques of crumpling and spraying on canvas, Ladislas Kijno was a close friend of Louis Aragon, whom he met in an encounter that influenced his work, often closely connected with poetry.

An invited artist at the Venice Biennale in 1980, he created several monumental works for religious buildings, including the rose window of Notre-Dame de la Treille Cathedral in Lille. Kijno also created a depiction of the Last Supper for the church on the Plateau d’Assy, in the town of Passy (Haute-Savoie), which was decorated by leading postwar artists.

Paper collage and mixed media on canvas Year 1980

Dimensions: 145 x 145 cm