Caziel: Abstraction Explored
Londoners are fortunate when it comes to culture. Be it art, theatre, restaurants or music, there is something for every appetite, as these pages show. But sometimes – in fact often – it is easy to get lost in the quagmire. There is so much on offer that one can feel overwhelmed. It can be worth straying from the beaten track. And so it is, straying (not intimidatingly far) from the beaten track that I found myself stumbling across Whitford Fine Art on Duke Street St James’s, currently exhibiting Caziel: Abstraction Explored – works from the fifties.
The exhibition is intimate and therefore unintimidating, rejecting the all-too familiar trap of boastful display that so many of the smaller galleries tend to fall into. Spread across two floors, Abstraction Explored displays Caziel’s more significant artworks from (unsurprisingly) the 1950s.
There is something truly comforting about Abstraction Explored, despite the fact it is abstract and therefore, to some, inherently confusing (see last week’s review of Howard Hogkin’s Absent Friends, currently showing at the National Portrait Gallery). This is perhaps due to the lack of any explanation or text offering on the Whitford Gallery’s part. The viewer is therefore at liberty – truly, at liberty – to come to his own conclusions. The pictures, entitled “Composition”, present an aesthetic that is entirely without bias, which is a complete and utter relief. It is exciting to peruse in an environment so void of judgement, and a rare treat to do so.
The works of Caziel (real name Kazimierz Józef Zielenkiewicz) are here both ordered and chaotic. Mostly black but punctuated with bright primary colours and bold shapes, they are unassuming and visually pleasing. Abstraction Explored documents Caziel’s early dalliance with abstraction, a form he later fully embraced before his death in 1988. The artist’s influences are instantly recognisable (Picasso, Cezanne and Braque), again reinforcing the familiar nature of the exhibition. I cannot imagine that anyone – young or old, knowledgable or uninformed – could stand before one of Caziel’s works exhibited here and not be touched in some way.
Just as fascinating is the artist’s life. Born in Poland in 1906, Caziel and his family fled to Moscow during WW1 and then pushed further across Siberia after the 1917 Revolution and Russian Civil War. Impoverished and hungry, young Caziel earned money cleaning art schools and posing as a model, before returning to Poland in 1922. He studied at Warsaw Fine Art Academy and, his talents recognised, went to France armed with a national bursary in 1937. During the Second World War, Caziel hid in Aix-en-Provence, before travelling back to Paris in 1947.
Many of the works exhibited in Abstraction Explored were painted during his time in Paris, where Caziel befriended some of Europe’s greatest modern artists, including Le Corbusier and Brancusi but it was his friendship with Picasso that was especially important in the development of his work. It was during this time that Caziel found love – falling for Scottish artist Catherine Sinclair, who he later married. Caziel’s life is one of romance and adventure, soon to be documented by his daughter Clementina, who is developing a treatment for a drama series based on her father’s life. I boisterously tracked Clementina down upon stumbling across Whitford Fine Art. “It is wonderful to see these paintings exhibited at Whitford Fine Art with whom we have had a 20 year relationship and to see the public’s reaction to his work,” Clementina told me.
Unassuming and touching, Caziel’s Abstraction Explored is unquestionably worth a detour. It was Caziel’s belief that paintings should bring joy, and those exhibited here certainly do.
Caziel: Abstraction Explored – works from the 50s is currently exhibiting at Whitford Fine Art until 2nd June 2017. Prices: £3,800-£36,000.