Kali (painter)

Kali (painter)
Kali (Hanna Weynerowska, born Hanna Gordziałkowska; (December 18, 1918 – June 20, 1998) was a Polish-born American painter known for her stylized portraits. She has been described as one of the most important Polish female painters. She was a World War II veteran of the Polish Resistance Movement after Nazi Germany occupied Poland, when she used the nom de guerre Kali. After emigrating and marrying, she used many variants of name, including "Hanna Kali Weynerowski", "Hanna Weynerowski-Kali", "Hanna Gordziałkowski-Weynerowski", "Hanka Weynerowska", and "Hanna Gordziałkowski", but she signed her paintings Kali.
Work
The figures in her art resemble Old Masters in subject and positioning, but are painted in a simplified, flattened and more graphic manner. The paintings are brightly colored, often portraying the subject shown sitting at bust-length, with an elongated face, flattened body, a patterned element such as part of the clothing, and with the subject's hands positioned in a classical pose. Her work has been likened to a combination of Neo-mannerist and Surrealist.
Life
Hanna Gordziałkowska was born on 18 December 1918 in Warsaw, Poland. She attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, studying under Tadeusz Pruszkowski. Her education was interrupted by the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. She joined the Polish resistance movement, the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), using the nom de guerre Kali; she was a member of a women's sabotage unit. In the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, she was wounded and taken prisoner of war to Germany. Her prison camp was eventually liberated by the Soviet Army. She escaped from communist-governed Poland, aided by the U.S. military, to West Germany.
By 1945 she was living in Brussels, Belgium, and attending the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts (ARBA) in Brussels to complete her arts education. In Brussels she married Henryk "Henry" Weynerowski (1901–88) a fellow Polish refugee and resistance fighter. For the next five years, she lived in Europe and exhibited her art in various countries, including France, Britain, Canada, Sweden, and Switzerland. She used many variants of her name after emigrating from Poland and marrying, including "Hanna Kali Weynerowski", "Hanna Weynerowski-Kali", "Hanna Gordziałkowski-Weynerowski", "Hanka Weynerowska", and "Hanna Gordziałkowski". Her paintings were simply signed Kali.
In 1953 she moved with her husband to San Francisco, California, where they lived until their deaths.
She died on 20 June 1998 in San Francisco. In her will, she requested that her 86 paintings be transferred to the Polish Museum in Rapperswil, Switzerland. The paintings were missing for sixteen years until early 2014, when FBI agents visited her nephew in Santa Rosa, California. Her nephew explained that 75 of the missing paintings were in a storage facility; they were returned to the museum.
Exhibitions
1950: Galerie des Garets, Paris, France
1950: London Gallery, London, England
1950: Palais de Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium
1952: Weyhe Gallery, New York, New York, US
1953: São Paulo Art Biennial (Bienal Do Museu De Arte Moderna), São Paulo, Brazil
1955: California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California, US
1963: Gallery 63 Inc., New York, New York, US
2014: Polish Museum, Rapperswil, Switzerland
References
External links
Kali Image Gallery from Gazeta Wyborcza (a Polish newspaper)
Exhibition of Hanna Weynerowska-Kali at the Rapperswil Polish Museum
Polish-Born Artist's Missing Paintings Discovered in Santa Rosa Storage Unit news article from NBC Bay Area
1918 births
1998 deaths
Polish women artists
World War II prisoners of war held by Germany
Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw alumni
Polish-American culture in California
Painters from San Francisco
Painters from Warsaw
Home Army members
Warsaw Uprising insurgents
20th-century Polish painters
American women painters
20th-century American artists
20th-century American women artists
Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts alumni
Polish prisoners of war
20th-century Polish women
Polish emigrants to the United States
Female resistance members of World War II