Ireneusz Pierzgalski, Composition, 1960

watercolor, crayon, paper, 15 x 32 cm signed and dated p.d.: Pierzgalski 60

In 1955 he received his diploma from the State Higher School of Visual Arts in Lodz. From 1955 to 1976, he taught at the State Higher School of Film, Television and Theater in Lodz. Since 1976, he was a docent at the Lodz PWSSP, leading the Photography Studio at the Graphics Department. During his entire, almost thirty-year, period at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz, at the Faculty of Painting and Graphics, he was head of the Photography Studio, later transformed into the Photography and Video Image Studio. From 1981 to 1999, he was head of the Department of Selected Plastic Issues at the WGiM. Since 1990, he held the position of associate professor, and since 1999, after being awarded the title of Professor of Visual Arts, he held the position of full professor. In the 1950s, he was associated with the "Fifth Circle" group, then the "New Line." In the 1960s, he frequently exhibited his works at one of the then most prominent Krzywe Koło Gallery in Warsaw. "Looking at reality from the edge, as it were, just as we would like to capture a mirror reflection in all its complexity by looking at the edge of a mirror becomes more interesting," he says. "Contact with art is a kind of excursion beyond the reality of the known world. It is stepping on a path that runs always slightly above the ground." Ireneusz Pierzgalski