Crumpled and ironed

Zbylut Grzywacz (1939 to 2004) was a painter, printmaker, sculptor and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. He was also a passionate collector and expert on minerals and fossils. He co-founded the Kraków-based art group Wprost (1966 to 1986) together with Maciej Bieniasz (1938–), Leszek Sobocki (1934–) and Jacek Waltoś (1938–). The group brought together four artists deeply engaged with the political and social reality of their time, and sensitive to how it affected individual lives. Although Grzywacz described himself as a naturalist fascinated by the natural world, the central theme of his work was always the human being – with a particular focus on the need for freedom and dignity. The painting *Crumpled and Ironed*, held in the collection of the National Museum in Szczecin, is part of the series *Man Without Qualities* (1971 to 1974). The title echoes *The Man Without Qualities*, Robert Musil’s classic twentieth-century novel, which explores questions of morality, individuality, and the elusive nature – or absence – of human character. In this series of paintings and installations, Grzywacz reflects on his own inner struggles and external suffering. He examines the human condition, suspended between physicality and spirituality, love and rejection, good and evil. The artist wrote: “The entire cycle was intended as a kind of painted treatise on the difficulties faced by a person who does not sufficiently defend their independence from the collective, which imposes conformity, treats them statistically, and shapes or distorts their identity according to prescribed norms. It was also about metaphorically showing the consequences of voluntarily adapting to those norms, the escape from freedom.” Marlena Chybowska-Butler