Józef Halas

Józef Halas (1927–2015) is one of the most important Polish painters of the second half of the 20th century. However, his work and its unique aesthetic, all produced in Wroclaw, are still largely unknown outside of Poland. The key series that punctuate it, Mountains, Oppositions, Partitions and Interiors, show both a strong connection with nature and a distance from the Western landscape painting tradition. His abstraction, which is not expressionist, nor gestural, geometric, or formalist, is given much deserved attention in essays by Michel Gauthier, curator at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Magdalena Howorus-Czajka, professor at the University of Gdansk.