Józef Jarema

Painted circa 1962.

Józef Jarema studied under Jacek Malczewski and Jozef Pankiewicz at the Academy of Fina Arts in Krakow between 1918 and 1924. From 1924, he was amongst the Paris-based Kapists; he took part in the group’s exhibition at Galerie Zak in 1930 and in a joint showcase at Galerie Moos in Geneva in 1931. Upon returning to Poland in 1931, he collaborated with Głos Plastyków, a magazine that promoted the aesthetics of Colourism. During World War II he fled Poland following the invasion by the Nazis and joined the allied forces. He was stationed in the Middle East and Italy. He remained in Italy after the war and in 1945, together with the futurist Enrico Prampolini, founded the ‘Art Club’ in Rome. In 1950 Jarema and his wife Maria moved to Nice, where they set up a weaving workshop. The couple designed fabrics and wove carpets and tapestries of abstract patterns which they exhibited in Nice and Paris.

During his Kapist period, Jarema focused on the colour composition of his paintings, emphasising the qualities of the painting matter and the surface texture. After the war, Jarema painted abstract paintings with strong, saturated colours; he operated with simple geometric forms suspended in undefined space, outlined on a flat background or permeating each other. The essence of these compositions was the interplay of colour plans, chromatic relations between the figure and the background.