Polish corrida

Marek Sapetto (1939 to 2019) was a painter, draughtsman and graphic artist who taught for many years at the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Together with Wiesław Szamborski, he co-authored the artistic manifesto *Normalnie fakt*, in which both artists firmly distanced themselves from abstraction, post-impressionism and academic realism. In his work, Sapetto drew on themes from everyday life and current events, including public and political ones. He is considered one of the most important figures in the Polish variant of the new figuration movement. The artist himself wrote: “The intentional object-based approach and my belief in the social impact of art influence the expression of my work. Assigning dominance and ordering the meanings of things, objects and ideas is, for me, the same as creating.” The painting *Polish Corrida*, created in 1966 and held in the collection of the National Museum in Szczecin, dates from the period when Sapetto was completing his studies at the Warsaw Academy. It was also a time of tension between the communist authorities and the Catholic Church. Through its bold use of colour and expression, characteristic of the artist, the painting may, following the title’s lead, use the metaphor of a local bullfight to depict the need to confront challenges such as the struggle for values, freedom of speech and cultural independence. The 1960s in Poland were marked by political and social conflict. Artists and freedom activists were often forced to take bold stands and engage in battles on an uneven playing field against the system. In communist Poland, the opposition was the side marked for destruction. Sapetto may have represented it symbolically in the form of a bull with a blue-bleeding wound. Next to the animal is a figure also painted in blue, with outstretched arms, perhaps representing the unbroken spirit of the fight for dignity and a decent life. Marlena Chybowska-Butler