6 Wojciech Fangor (1922 - 2015) "SM 1', 1974 oil/canvas, 142 x 142 cm Signed, dated and described on the reverse: '143 x 143 cm ID: 182041 Taxes and fees - In addition to the hammer price, the successful bidder agrees to pay us a buyer's premium on the hammer prices of each lot sold. On all lots we charge 20 % of the hammer price. - To this lot we apply 'artist&s owe right' (&#xx27;droit de suite&#xi27;) fee. Royalties are calculated using a sliding scale of percentage of the hammer price. Provenance private collection, Warsaw DESA Unicum, 2024 private collection, Poland Opinions The work listed in the Catalogue Raisonné edited by Katarzyna Jankowska-Cieślik, cat. no. P. 940 Literature Stefan Szydlowski, Wojciech Fangor. Space as a game, Kraków 2012, p. 226 (il.) Exhibited Wojciech Fangor. Painting, Gallery 261, Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, Łodź, 11 More information WARJCIECH FANGOR'S PROFESSIONAL GARDENA Wojciech Fangor's work was based on the study of the relationship between color, form and space perceived by the viewer. Although the artist is associated primarily with optical compositions, his search was not limited to illusions of movement. The American Dream exhibition in Krupa Art Foundation in 2024 reminded Fangor's experiments with perception and space, while the space in Zachęta in 2025 drew attention to his interest in going beyond the traditional picture plane. Against this background, the 1974 sm of 1974 allows us to look at a less obvious aspect of his practice: differentiation of ways of developing colorful fields and their boundaries. It is the first work in the SM series, which was created in Summit, Madison, New Jersey, where Fangor lived and created in 1966 and 1975. The composition is based on extensive color fields, whose mutual relations are built by differentiation of saturation, value and way of developing contours. The soft tonal transitions are adjacent to the more clearly marked boundaries, so that the surface of the image is not subject to a uniform blur rule. The combination of these different solutions introduces visual tension and gives the composition internal rhythm. It is not only the influence of individual colors, but also the way in which their boundaries organize the whole. In the mid - 1970 ' s, Fangor developed parallel search directions. In the "Interface Space" series, he returned to the typical themes, addressing the issue of relationships between people. The "SM 1" remains an abstract composition, in which the meaning is not due to the representation of recognizable characters or objects, but to the organisation of the image itself. The list of fields with different contours shows that abstraction was an area for the artist to differentiate painting products, not just to develop one recognizable optical scheme. Fangor's painting can be classified as an op-art because of the way it affects eyesight and gives the impression of spatiality. However, the artist was interested not only in the optical effect, but also in the relationship between the surface of the canvas and the space experienced by the recipient. The tension between soft and inconclusive and clearly delimited is important in the "SM 1 '. Diversification of contours influences the way the different parts of the composition are read, focusing the attention of the viewer towards their interdependencies. The image can therefore be seen not only as a system of color forms, but also as a field in which the way of view changes depending on the place of attention. Fangor treated painting as an experience involving not only sight but also other senses. In his conversation with Stefan Szydłowski, he paid attention to the sensations of touch, hearing and smell accompanying work with various materials. With regard to the "SM 1" this perspective also makes it possible to take into account the material dimension of the work: the way in which the paint is conducted, the development of the surface and the workshop decisions that make the individual parties different in character. It does not replace the optical analysis, but complements it, reminding that the perception effect is the result of specific painting activities. The American period of Fangor's work brought him international recognition and created the conditions for an intensive development of his own painting concepts. In 1970, the artist had an individual exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and later did teaching work at Fairleigh Dickinson University. During that time he was in contact with representatives of the American artistic scene, among them Richard Anuszkiewicz and Julian Stańczak, whose work also involved an examination of the influence of color and form. This context helps to place SM 1 in an environment of intense search for perception, without prejudging the direct influences between artists. In the case of Fangor's painting, direct contact with the original is particularly important to assess the scale of the composition, the subtlety of the tonal transitions and the precision of the development of borders, which reproduction does not always fully reflect. As the first work of the MS series, the image takes a special place within this series. It allows us to trace the direction of Fangor's search in the 1970s, when he developed new ways of organizing abstract composition. The value of "SM 1" is to combine the artist's recognizable interest in perception with a more diverse approach to painting form.