‘In Lublin we met Daruta Ziemska, the widow of Jan Ziemski. The striking three-dimensional optical works by her husband that we viewed at her home were largely black and white, but we were attracted to one with the addition of a vivid pink circle and were happy when she agreed to sell it to us.’
From the mid-1960s, Ziemski was focused on the challenge of visualizing and representing space, movement and light and exploring the relationship between the observer and a work of art. Using spherically curved slats and contrasting colour, he successfully constructed structures that evoke optical illusions, in particular the illusion of movement, as seen in the present work executed circa 1970.
Ziemski studied art history at the Catholic University of Lublin. With fellow artists and critics, namely Włodzimierz Borowski, Tytus Dzieduszycki, Ryszard Kiwerski, Jerzy Ludwiński and Hanna Ptaszkowska, he co-founded the Zamek (Castle) Group in 1956. Jerzy Ludwiński wrote about the group: ‘If opposition to the academism of official art and longing for other creativity can be considered a program, then this is the program of Lublin artists.’