Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Wojciech Bonawentura Fangor (pronounced: VOY-tche-kh ) (15 November 1922 – 25 October 2015), also known as Voy Fangor, was a Polish painter, graphic artist, and sculptor. Described as "one of the most distinctive painters to emerge from postwar Poland", Fangor has been associated with Op art and Color field movements and recognized as a key figure in the history of Polish postwar abstract art. As a graphic artist, Fangor is known as a co-creator of the Polish School of Posters. Between 1953 and 1961, he designed over one hundred posters working alongside Henryk Tomaszewski and Jan Lenica, among others. As a painter, Fangor was trained by the Polish academic and figurative artist Felicjan Szczęsny-Kowarski. After briefly conforming to the style of Socialist Realism during the Stalinist regime in Poland, Fangor had moved toward non-objective painting by the late 1950s. Fangor's 1958 exhibition titled Studium Przestrzeni at Salon Nowej Kultury in Warsaw, organized together with artist and scenographer Stanisław Zamecznik, sought to incorporate Fangor's abstract paintings into the surrounding environment, becoming the foundation for his subsequent experiments with the spatial dimension of color. In 1966, following a period of extensive international travel, Fangor relocated to the United States where he achieved a level of commercial success, critical reception, and direct exposure to American post-war visual culture largely inaccessible to most contemporary artists from the Eastern Bloc. In 1970, he became the first Polish artist to hold a solo exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Fangor returned to Poland in 1999 where he remained active until his death in 2015, although his international recognition had by then diminished. For his contributions to the Polish culture, Fangor was awarded several honors, including the Order of Polonia Restituta in 2001, the country's second highest civilian order, and the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture in 2004. His works are included in the permanent collections of museums in Europe, North America, and the Middle East.
Wikidata
Q8029114
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Getty record
Introduction
The Polish painter began his career during the Stalinist era, and then worked in the syle of socialist realism. After Stalin’s death, Fangor became interested in architecture and design, and was one of the founders of the Polish school of poster design. In 1965 he was included in “The Responsive Eye” show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which focused on Op art developments at the time. He was recognized during this period for his paintings of blurred circular or irregular shapes in vivid colors.
Nationalities
Polish, American, Central European, Eastern European
Gender
Male
Roles
Artist, Designer, Graphic Artist, Painter, Poster Artist
Names
Wojciech Fangor, Wijciech Fangor, Wojviech Fangor, Voy Fangor
Ulan
500049430
Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

Works

2 works online

Exhibitions

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].