Lektura obowiązkowa

Painted in 1962, Lektura obowiązkowa (A must-read) is a testament to Anna Güntner’s unique creative vision and keen sense of wit. Deeply influenced by the art of the Old Masters, Güntner employed imagery often found in these earlier paintings and infused them with a radical modernity through the ambiguity of her surrealist imagery, with links to the emblematic work of Surrealist painters like René Magritte (1898 - 1967, Belgian artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature, and boundaries, of reality and representation).

Like most of Güntner’s paintings, Lektura obowiązkowa (A must-read) evokes a somewhat dreamlike atmosphere in a composition that raises questions within the viewer. The initial overall impression is also based on a recurring compositional model of the artist. Güntner liked to depict stylised, idealised (often finely limbed) naked women in the foreground of her paintings. These figures were also frequently placed in front of a, equally, stylised and idealised landscape that fades into the background.

If Güntner’s models could be likened to modern-day relatives of the female figures painted by Italian Renaissance masters like Sandro Botticelli (1445 - 1510), in works such as Nascita di Venere / The Birth of Venus (c. 1484 - 1486, tempera on canvas, 173 x 279 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy), one would, probably, have to move north of the Alps in order to unearth her inspiration for the landscapes in the background. It seems reasonable to assume that Güntner had a thorough knowledge of European art history and was well acquainted with the works of pioneering artists like Joachim Patinir (c. 1480 – 1524, Flemish Renaissance painter working in Antwerp). Patinir was a pioneer of landscape as an independent genre and he was the first Flemish painter to regard himself primarily as a landscape painter. He effectively invented the ‘world landscape’, a distinct style of panoramic northern Renaissance landscapes which is Patinir’s important contribution to Western art. His work marks an important stage in the development of the representation of perspective in landscape painting, in compositions like Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx (c. 1515 - 1524, oil on wood, 64 x 103 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid). Patinir’s achievements in landscape painting would be acknowledged by, and influence, other masters of the early modern period (c. 1500 - 1800) like Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 – 1516, Dutch painter and one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on oak wood, mainly contains fantastic illustrations of religious concepts and narrative) and Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c. 1525/1530 – 1569, among the most significant artists of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes [so-called genre painting]; he was a pioneer in presenting both types of subject as large paintings).

Traces of Patinir’s ‘world landscape’ is discernible in a variety of paintings by Güntner like, for example, Demeter (1966, oil on canvas, 110 x 80 cm). Hieronymus Bosch, also, seems to have inspired Güntner in extraordinary works like her Zaręczyny / Engagement (1970, oil on canvas, 100 x 131 cm), which is clearly influenced by Bosch’s masterpiece The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1495 - 1505, oil on wood, 220 x 389 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid).

In Lektura obowiązkowa (A must-read), however, the landscape is more toned down in the background (rather like in Güntner’s Sonet, 1965, oil on canvas, 90 x 70 cm). As a matter of fact, the stillness of the landscape, with its subdued palette and toned down details appears a bit unusual for Güntner and brings to mind the serene stillness of some of Wilhelm Hammershøis (1864 – 1916, Danish painter, known for his poetic, subdued portraits and interiors) celebrated landscape paintings, like Landscape, From Camps (1905, 41 x 68 cm, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm).

Güntner often, like Rene Magritte, infused her compositions with ambiguous juxtapositions that would raise questions within the viewer. One famous example is the inclusion of a typewriter in her painting Sonet (1965, oil on canvas, 90 x 70 cm). Another good example is the telephone in Conversation with Mr. Montefeltro (1968, oil on canvas, 110 x 70 cm), which also directly references art historical inspiration by including a copy of Piero della Francescas legendary portrait of Federico da Montefeltro (c. 1473 - 1475, oil on wood, 47 x 33 cm, Galleria deli Uffizi, Florence, Italy) in the background.

In Lektura obowiązkowa (A must-read), however, it’s the inclusion of a golden contraption that raises questions. The girl, holding a book (a reference to the title of the work?), seems trapped in what appears to be a gilded bed frame. Or could it be a golden cage, like the ones we recognise from several works by Francis Bacon (1909 – 1992, Irish-born British figurative painter known for his raw, unsettling imagery. Focusing on the human form, his subjects included crucifixions, portraits of popes, self-portraits and portraits of close friends; with abstracted figures sometimes isolated in geometrical structures), like Study after Velazquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (oil on canvas, 153 x 118 cm, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, U.S.A.)?

Anna Güntner’s painterly style emulates the world of, somewhat unsettling, fairy tales as the artist invites the viewer into her own dreamlike fantasy world. While looking at her work we are faced with a multiplicity of potential meanings, as metaphorical resonance brings us viewers into a mystery, without providing any answers. Güntner’s symbolism is intuitive. The artist doesn’t offer any interpretation, and the understanding of the work depends wholly on the frame of mind of the individual viewer. The exhibition catalogue Anna Güntner, Galeria Sztuki Artemis, Krakow, Poland (2021) sums it up pretty well (whilst also placing Güntner’s surrealist landscapes in a historical context, set against the backdrop of the totalitarian Polish state [1947 - 1990] that she lived and worked in):

Although Anna Güntner’s paintings were neither cheerful nor brooding, but rather melancholic and nostalgic (like unusual windows into the inner world), they immediately seduced everyone. Firstly, they were beautiful. Secondly, mysterious. Thirdly, they were disturbingly suspended between dreamy visions of other worlds and a slightly perverse eroticism, not at all common in female painters. What are they about? Their invariable protagonists are girls with perfectly harmonious bodies and gazes that are seldom directed at us, but rather somewhere within themselves. Strange guests in the spaces of the paintings. They undoubtedly belong to our contemporaneity, as evidenced by the various props that accompany them. But the spaces themselves are from somewhere else. From longing, from the history of painting, mainly the Renaissance, from dreams of distant journeys through both time and geography. I would like to be there... - says Anna Güntner with every painting, and for the time being she sends her multiplied alter ego into these worlds: all these beautiful girls who are after all one and the same person. Let us not be surprised that they are so unabashedly perfect. They cannot be different - if they are to earn their presence among peaceful and refined landscapes, equally ideal. If there was anyone who, in those days, made it clear in the strongest possible terms that they would prefer to live somewhere else than among the miserable reality of real socialism with its poverty, ugliness and mediocrity, it was Anna G. with her paintings.

Signed (on the reverse): ‘Anna Güntner’

Provenance

Anonymous sale, Desa, Warsaw, 1967.

Private European collection (acquired at the above sale).

Christie’s, London, Impressionist and Modern Art Day and Works on Paper Sale, 8 March 2024, lot 296.

Firestorm Foundation (acquired at the above sale).

Literature

Anna Güntner, exhibition catalogue, Galeria Sztuki Artemis, Krakow, Poland, 2021, p. 222 (illustrated).

Copyright Firestorm Foundation