20 May 2021
Paweł Kowalewski is an icon of Polish art of the 1980s. He was the founder of the legendary Gruppa, the most famous Polish artistic formation of the PRL period. His works, created during the period of political transformation, are today an important, cynical commentary on the traumatic experiences of Poles, created as a result of the repression of the totalitarian regime. Paweł Kowalewski's work from the 1980s is a Polish testimony of the quest for freedom and artistic recovery after the overthrow of communist rule. Unfortunately, due to the unfortunate and tragic consequences of the event, several of Kowalewski's iconic works from that period were completely destroyed as a result of the flooding of the storage space where the artist stored his canvases in 1997. At that time, such works of Polish painting as: “Me on the top, you on the bottom”, “Between Hell and Heaven”, “Maneuvers of the Red Army 1918” and “The angry red dog on a green background keeps watch” ceased to exist. After more than 30 years, following the persuasion of recognized curators and the artistic community, the artist decided to create completely new, unique author replicas of those works destroyed in 1997, which are today the only existing versions of Paweł Kowalewski's paintings, enriched with invaluable artistic achievements and experience of the creator. At the turn of 2019 and 2020, the artist painted paintings that are de facto deepened with a new painting value and at the same time rooted in one of the key moments for Polish contemporary art.
2021
At a charity auction for the Gajusz Foundation in Łódź, a watercolor painting by Paweł Kowalewski entitled “Freedom” was auctioned for children in need and then donated to President Lech Wałęsa. A delicate, blue composition with wings, brutally touches the most important problem of our world. Freedom is a priceless value that we often forget to appreciate. The fleeting watercolor is a sketch for the painting by the artist of the same name.