Kajetan Sosnowski

born 1913, Wilno

Kajetan Sosnowski

Biography

Bożena Kowalska
The art of Kajetan Sosnowski
Translated by Marek Lasota

In his early childhood Sosnowski had three alternative interests which weighted on his choice of professional career: mathematics, music and painting. This fact is quite significant for the artist's biography. Although he abandoned playing the cello and never took up studies in the natural sciences - the artist's way of thinking, imagination and sensitivity were shaped under a considerable influence of those unceasing interests. Moreover, as the years went by, the spheres of his interests in contemporary philosophy and culture grew ever wider and deeper. Being an inquisitive observer and an artist of independent opinions, on both the Polish and not only the Polish ground, Sosnowski was a rare example of a truly contemporary artist. Versatile in his interests, knowledgeable in vicissitudes of the scientific and artistic thought of our time, liberated from any residue of the dead criteria of yesteryear, armed with the tender sensitiveness of painting, music and poetry - he appreciated the leading role of exact sciences in the human present and future.
Sosnowski's characteristic accuracy of observation, bold critical opinions and rational thinking were decisive for the crystallisation of his unconventional world outlook and programme of artistic search that were based on relation's with discoveries made by natural sciences. Sosnowski's theoretical provisions of painting were founded on the idea of co-operation between art and science in order to discover for human imagination new regions of experience and learning.
The already mature and precise strivings of the artist found the fullest expression in the series of Empty Pictures (1963-1965), the post -1967 polyptychs and in the 'stitched' and 'chemical pictures' of the l970s' and 80s. They were also manifested in his spatial arrangements, such as the welded metal form presented during the First Biennial of Spatial Forms in Elbląg, the design of a square with The Column of Remembrance and Dreams in Chełm, asymmetrical axial structures or draft designs of bridges, buildings and monuments, in which the formal treatment was closely coupled with functionality and full respect for the laws of statics.
The origins of Sosnowski's theoretical considerations and artistic achievements could be found in the circle of constructivism and geometrical abstraction. However, this circle would include Malevich and Mondrian, but not Tatlin and Rodchenko, while in Poland - Strzemiński and Stażewski, but not Szczuka and Berlewi. This is because, despite the artist's longing for the realisation of large spatial projects and entering the realm of architecture and town planning, his works were independent creations, far removed from a directly utilitarian significance.
The process of transformations involving Sosnowski's views, strivings and search, which resulted in out-standing artistic achievements during the last three decades of his life, was neither fast nor easy. And although it revealed a gradual but consistent liberation of individuaf traits in the artist's personality, it was specifitally coupled with the meandering line of Polish art in the pre- and postwae period.
Initially, after abandoning hisstudies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Sosnowski painted in the convention of realism and colorism. Like many other artists, after 1950 he tried,to adaapt himself to requirements of the then binding programme of socialist realism by devoting most of his time to graphic arts and drawing, but those attempts did not obtain the artist's own approval and were never displayed in public.
It was also the time of Sosnowski's intensive thinking about the role and shape of the new art. That general subject matter became pivotal in discussions with his closest friends, among them Marian Bogusz and Zbigniew Dłubak. As a result of common thinking and related attitudes, in 1955 those three painters formed a group which, in August of the same year, staged its first painting exhibition at the 'Desa' Salon in the Warsaw Old Market Place. The show was treated as a programme manifestation and it had a special meaning. Having been held at the'ame time as the famous 'Arsenał' exhibition in Warsaw, it was a voice of objection both to the exuberant expressionism' and to the post-impressionistic aestheticism which dominated that show. The group, which was named 'Group 55' after the year of its foundation, played a pioneering ideaforming and organisational role in the Polish artistic life of the second half of the 1950s.
The years 1955-1956 saw the creation of the first series of Sosnowski's works which had a great, if not decisive, importance for the artist's future as a painter. With his Lyrical Diary Sosnowski disengaged himself from the already passing socialist realism, opposed the oncoming offensive of expressive exhibitionism and, simultaneously, liberated himself from the post-impressionistic burden. This does not mean that the series was already a mature artistic statement. Nor was it formally concise enough to be treated as a realisation of a conscious programme. However, it was a formulation of the artist's own standpoint on conflicting attitudes and trends. Moreover, a more careful analysis of those eight pictures, marked by an intimacy and discretion of emotional message, makes it possible to perceive in them those questions which later became the centre of Sosnowski's artistic search.
In the second half of the 1950s Sosnowski's awareness of processes taking place in the contemporary music, poetry, literature and visual arts as well as his growing understanding of painting were still confused with his need of making an intimate, personal statement in art. At times, his general line of disregarding objectiveness edged towards organic forms and then it moved in the direction of geometrical arrangements, while preserving the metaphorical implied meanings. At that time the artist found the starting point for the series of White Paintings of 1958-1959. The conscious reduction of colours to the most difficult one: white - became a self-imposed purist lesson of order, limitation and also of the search for a refined wealth in ascetism.
That period of intentional restraint of expression and subordination to the self-rigorous restriction was the time when Kajetan Sosnowski realised that the only artistic road for him was the most risky one: to explore virgin areas. Since then, his search became a patient intellectual and artistic penetration of one selected problem until the simplest and final form of its expression was found. Since then, he needed to follow events in contemporary Polish and world painting only in order to avoid any similarity with the works of other painters. After the ascetic white period, summed up by an exhibition in January 1959, the artist returned to colour in a new painting series which was collectively named Erotics. It was a special come-back, burdened by the entire experience of the raw discipline of restrictions, an exercise for the eye in the nuances of the shades of white and subtle texture variations. This short series reflected the wealth of visual knowledge and experience gained by the painter. The pictures was lyrical and refined. Despite their extreme abstractness they were warm and sensual. This may have been caused - besides such means as colour, light and the subtle fading shadows - by the artist's unusual method of work. He did not use any tools for applying paint, preferring to spread it across the canvas with his bare hand.
The series of Erotics was Sosnowski's last return to objective allusions. And although this objectiveness and allusiveness were equally discreet, enigmatic and economical as the technique of painting, they constituted a direct projection of the author's expressive dispositions.
Simultaneously to Erotics, and intensively since 1961, Sosnowski was experimenting with gouache and oil works that featured a composition of concentric circles vibrating with colours and texture. They were similar to the circles dispersing on water surface when disturbed by a falling stone. The central texture of the heaviest accumulation of twisted paint and the utmost colour saturation was becoming smoother towards thl canvas edges, while the colour brush strokes were growing rarer and disappearing in white or black.
The inquisitive continuation of those attempts repeated in various variations brought the artist to the revealing series of Empty Paintings of 1963- 1965. They combined and fully articulated the results of his reflections on the uniform character of lighr and colour, perceived as an optical phenomenon, as well as effects of his long-standing process of visual experimentation and experience. In Empty Paintings Sosnowski ventured te depict the essence of phenomena instead of their effects. In this way he crossed the limits of abstraction and discovered a new, previously unknown sense of light and colour in painting. Differently from Monet or Cezanne and his successors, Sosnowski proved that colour is light. However, his colours have no names. The greys are glowing with a greenish light, violets - with pink, oranges - with the glitter of gold; in neither case are they variations of colour phases, but a progressive growth of luminosity.
Having been fascinated with light and its derivative colours, Sosnowski made comparative studies on their treatment in the aspect of painting and optics. That brought him to another stage of his artistic career. He experimented with evoking post-visual impressions. In diptychs and triptychs enclosed within a single frame he confronted paintings of a uniform colour plane with those of an intensive emanation of luminosity. The light vibration was then transmitted as an after-image to the still surface. He also combined paintings of complementary colours, using frames of the same colour as the canvas in order to enhance the effect by inversion His other experiments were based on the optical analysis of the light spectrum. They proved that colours having shorter electromagnetic waves, that is of higher frequency - such as violet, blue and green - carried more energy than colours of longer waves but lower frequency, such as red, orange and yellow.
These findings ran counter to what the painting practice and reception had traditionally implied. The artist tried to combine colours so as to achieve - contrary to habits but according to scientific conclusions - the domination of those colours which had a greater energy quantum.
Those several-year-long and precisely directed meditations and experiments brought about another revealing series in the years 1968-1969. Again, the inquisitiveness and artistic experiment produced a new quality in Sosnowski's visual language. However, the catalyst of that proces was not only an intellectual factor mythicised by the artist, but also his emotional mental disposition. The new series included spatially developed polyptychs composed of broad surfaces of a primary colour. The angled plane s of wings seemed to swell with colourful light, making an ever stronger impression of a spatial depth. In some cases the orchestration of colours in parts of a polyptych was based on the harmony of complementations. In other variations, their broken continuity produced complementary after-images evoking the feeling of unfulfilment and anxiety. But the decisive element for the magical effect of Sosnowski's polyptychs was not so much an intellectually supported concept as it was an emotional reference of the artist's imagination to infinity and the laws on which the micro- and macro-worlds are founded.
In his never-abandoned experiments in spatial arrangement, treated as a constructivist proposal for the shaping of human surrounding - in the years 1968-1970 the artist tried to combine the concept of his polyptychs with the idea of double-sided screen-like compositions that were broken by windows, and he also studied 'geometrie al asymmetrical axis structures'. Such activities were initiated by the already mentioned transparent sphere inside a cube, realised in 1965 at the Elbląg Symposium. That problem was later continued in many models and realisations in the late 1960s and the following decades. Works of that time included Kinepentaspeira - the Moebius strip - a one-plane spatial project (1970), the six-metre Asymmetrical Tower composed of eight crystalline elements, that revolved in relation to one another on a axis until they reached a half-turn, and a monumental development project for a town square in Chełm featuring the Column oj Remembrance and Dreams, designed on the occasion of the 1978 plein-air session 'Town Space' in that city. The series of chemical paintings was probably the fullest expression of questions related to the border line between the scientific interpretation of natural phenomena and their non-visual secrets which always fascinated Sosnowski.
The question of discovering the physical nature of matter and energy, which had long been an intellectual stimulus for the artist, was already the foundation of his Empty Paintings, revealing a new essence of light in painting, and also of his series of polyptychs. In chemical paintings the problem was taken up anew and enriched with a much more clearly manifested philosophical meaning.
The idea of paintings that change in close, organie relation to external transformation was conceived by Sosnowski in 1960, when he was in Geneva to design a 130-metre-long wall on commission from the United Nations. The changing landscape as seen through the windows of that huge room convinced him that the wall could not have a static character but should change in accordance with landscape transformations. This problem, which he had been unable to resolve at that time, was haunting him for many years to come. Sosnowski returned to it in 1972 with not just a ready concept but also the means to realise it. He undertook experiments with the cobalt chloride silicate which is used in hygrometres. In a dry state the silicate preserves its blue colour, while at a certain level of huinidity it becomes pink. The compound attracted the artist's attention not only because of its peculiar colour qualities, but also due to its structure and energy. A cobalt chloride molecule is composed of one atom of cobalt with seven electrons and two atoms of chlorine with two electrons each. The atom of cobalt - as if trying to gain an even number of electrons - is constantly borrowing an electron from one or another atom of chlorine. This way, the cobalt chloride crystals undergo a permanent, though invisible, energetic process.
Initially, the artist experimented with various binders and grounds to determine which were adequate for the application of cobalt chloride on canvas and plaster. It took him over one year to find a solution, but on the way he also discovered the only usable canvas finish before its saturation with cobalt chloride. What resulted from those activities were chemical paintings, originally based on a three-way recording of a phenomenon that interested the artist. The first way of recording had the character of a colourful visual experience, i.e. it was a painting which changed its colour in the range from blue to pink depending on air humidity. The second was a chemical recording of the cobalt chloride hydration process. The third was a physical recording, presenting graphically the atomic structure of the compound and its reaction to water. By the use of this triple way of recording one phenomenon situated in the world of processes that are non-visual and not fully explained scientifically, the artist asked the fundamental questions about truth, the basic reason and essence of the investigated phenomenon. Is it sufficient to rely on its fascinating, sensually perceived effect? In what extent is it determined by transformations in its atomic structure, and in what extent by chemical processes? To what extent is it an energetic phenomenon, and to what extent is it material?
Regardless of the philosophical reflection contained in the thus resolved visual problem, Sosnowski's chemical paintings seemed to offer new and promising application prospects in architecture and town planning. They stimulated visions oflarge internal and external walls, or perhaps whole housing districts, undergoing colour transformations in a direct relation to weather and natural conditions.
Following the series of chemical paintings, in early 1976 the artist launched a new concept which he named Katalipomenon after the Greek word for 'protection', 'preservation'. The concept's relation to the previous stage of his discoveries was contained within the sphere of its further reference to nature. The references were quite direct, because both the idea of the new series and its name originated in the concept of the protection of the natural environment of man. However, the works themselves in their visual form and meaning far exceeded the slogan-like and utilitarian goal of their original inspiration.
Kajetan once told me that during his painting career, after stretching the canvas but before applying the undercoat, he would repeatedly pause and look with pleasure at the texture of the fabric. In such moments he had a feeling that it was so pure and perfect as such, that covering it with paint seemed a barbarity, an act of devastation. Therefore, there were two factors: a longing to preserve the purity of undisturbed canvas and the newly discovered process applied in chemical paintings that brought him to the Katalipomenon series. In this way the intention to make an artistic representation of the idea of environmental protection became only a catalyst for the artist's new discovery. The canvas for the Katalipomenon pictures was sewed together, sometimes in only one diagonal, sometimes in two parallel lines across or in another arrangement, but always in a geometrical form. Canvas was one the first raw materials, made by the still unskilled human hands to cover man's nakedness. Canvas is woven of flax that grows in the earth. It has been manufactured to be cut and sewed and given a useful function for man. This is why Sosnowski sewed it, leaving it in its crude simplicty to preserve its atavistic associations with man and its natural vegetal relation to the earth, sun and rain. The slanting contact between the thread and warp on seams disturbed the one-way rhythm of the fabric's structure, which made it not only better visible but also more dramatic and poetic. It suggested movement and vast expanses, being not an illusion, but a visual mental space.
Katalipomenon was related through geometry to the constructivistic direction in the artist's thinking, through its spatiality and limited means - to Empty Paintings and polyptychs and to chemical paintings through its direct and symbolic connection with nature. Then, although it constituted a new quality, it was a consistent - but not the only - form of continuation of Sosnowski's' entire previous experience.
I the following years Katalipomenon was developed into new variations. Since 1981 it included sewed black paintings, and then several colour compositions and the one-colour Interventions which were sewed in such a way that the surface of a stretched canvas formed circular depressions, and also paintings with convex seams or even an ample fold of a colourful fabric or fringe, or the paintings with crosses. The latter series was an exception in Sosnowski's art, which for the three decades of its mature period remained faithful to the requirements of objectivism and universality. The series was an emotional and opinionated reaction dedicated to the author's crucified Homeland. It became another confirmation of his intense personal emotions, which he tried to suppress in vain but which he concealed quite effectively. I can hardly fail to mention his answer when, fearing for Kajetan's life during his serious illness. I asked him about his health. 'One should not worry about people' - he rebuked. 'One should worry about Issues.'
Apart from the 'crosses' the stitched black paintings of the 1980s provided the most stimulation for the emotions. Some of those large compositions were arranged radially, others were composed of triangles in various arrangements, or of semicircular or oval forms. The varying direction of thread and warp in particular parts of the painting caused different reflections of light on its surface. This produced an illusion of two or more shades of black in one painting, while revealing its harmonious composition of geometrie al forms. Those monumental paintings owe their effect not only to the spatial depth of the black which seemed to be emptiness or nothingness, but also the universal symbolism of this colour in our civilisational circle. The eschatological and transcendental message of Sosnowski's black canvases was extremely suggestive and piercing.
As it usualIy happened with Sosnowski, however, the emotional factor had to be counter-balanced or even dominated by a rational element. All the sewed paintings, as well as the majority of his chemical pictures in the last decade of the artist's life, were subordinated to the principle of Equivalent Systems, which he conceived at the turn of 1977. This meant that in every composition based on that principle, the field of one colour or thread direction had to cover the same area as any other colour or threads. If a painting was twocoloured or had threads running in two different directions, each of them occupied a half of the total area, if there were three - a third, and if four - a quarter, etc. The fact that the realisation of this geometrical equivalence was frequently at odds with the visual impression intrigued the artist and stimulated him to undertake further experiments.
Sosnowski was eager to discuss only the learned aspect of the problems he tackled. However, regardless of his restrained and always possibly rational interpretation of his own art, Sosnowski's paintings have primarily an emotional effect, bringing peace with their balance and order, and their frequently deep lyricism and metaphysical references. They carry a wealth of reflections, opening unlimited spheres of imagination. The programme of Sosnowski's artistic activities was targeted at finding a new expression for the truth about the world, especially to the scientifically approached truth about those non-visual phenomena which were the object of his intellectual anxieties and considerations. However, all kinds of expression created by the artist also reflected his own fascinations with the discovered and undiscovered nature of light, philosophical reflections and emotions and, finally, the same romantic wistfulness which, while still being naive, once enlivened his Lyrical Diary and then was revealed in its full intellectual and pictorial maturity in Empty Paintings. By the same token, his polyptychs, chemical paintings, Katalipomenon and Equivalent Systems, especially in the black edition, not only open up new regions in the perception of light, colour and space, but also contain the great unnamed magie of contemplation, metaphysical experience and the most affectionate emotions.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibition:
1956 Pamiętnik liryczny, Galeria Krzywe Koło, Warszawa
1958 Epitafia, Pejzaże myśli wieczornych, Galeria Krzywe Koło, Warszawa
1959 Obrazy białe, Galeria Krzywe Koło, Warszawa 1962 Portrety biblijne, Erotyki, Chełm
1962 wystawa indywidualna, Galeria El, Elbląg
1965 Obrazy puste, Galeria Krzywe Koło, Warszawa
1967 wystawa indywidualna, Chełm
1968 Poliptyki, Galeria od Nowa, Poznań
1968 Poliptyki, Galeria Współczesna Klubu Międzynarodowej Prasy i Książki, Teatr Wielki, Warszawa
1969 Poliptyki, Kompozycje dwustronne z oknami, Dania
1970 wystawa indywidualna, Galeria Mona Lisa, Wrocław
1970 wystawa retrospektywna, Poliptyki, Kompozycje dwustronne z oknami, Struktury asymetryczne, Muzeum Sztuki Aktualnej, Wrocław
1972 wystawa indywidualna, BWA, Lublin
1973 wystawa indywidualna, Galeria 72,Chełm
1973 wystawa indywidualna, Metalepseis, Galeria LP 220, Turyn
1974 wystawa indywidualna, Salon Sztuki Współczesnej, Łódź 1976 Katalipomena, Galeria Współczesna, Warszawa
1979 wystawa indywidualna, Obrazy szyte, Reliefy, Galeria Zapiecek, Warszawa
1981 Interwencje, Galeria MDM, Warszawa
1983 wystawa indywidualna, Kunststation (Gleria Bluma-Kwiatkowskiego), Kleinsassen
1983 Układy równowartościowe, Galeria Zapiecek w Warszawie
1983 akcja Pielgrzymka artystyczna (8 barwnych obrazów szytych), Galeria Ślad II (mieszkanie Janusza Zagrodzkiego), Łódź
1984 Układy równowartościowe, Galeria Krzysztofory, Kraków
1984 Pamięci Mondriana, Galeria Remont, Warszawa
1985 Układy równowartościowe, BWA, Lublin 1986
Układy równowartościowe, Galeria Studio, Warszawa
1986 Układy równowartościowe, siedziba attaché kulturalnego Republiki Federalnej Niemiec, Warszawa
1986 Katalipomena 2, Galeria Remont, Warszawa
1988 pośmiertna wystawa retrospektywna zorganizowana przez Jürgena Bluma-Kwiatkowskiego, Galeria New Space, Langen Bieber
1989 wystawa retrospektywna, Galeria Studio, Warszawa 1990 wystawa retrospektywna, Muzeum Okręgowe, Chełm
1992 Równoznaczność, Galeria Grodzka, Lublin
1998 Kajetan Sosnowski 1913-1987, Zachęta, Warszawa
1998 Kajetan Sosnowski 1913-1987, Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej BWA, Katowice
2002 pokaz dzieł, Galeria Stefana Szydłowskiego, Warszawa
2007 Kajetan Sosnowski - wystawa wspomnieniowa, Program Gallery, Warszawa
2013 Kajetan Sosnowski (1913-1987). W poszukiwaniu prawdy. Wystawa malarstwa w setną rocznicę urodzin artysty, Muzeum Miasta Łodzi, Łódź
2013 Kajetan Sosnowski (1913–1987). W setną rocznicę urodzin, Muzeum Ziemi Chełmskiej w Chełmie, Galeria 72, Chełm
2015 Inauguracja Galerii Beta 16. Wystawa prac Kajetana Sosnowskiego, Galeria Beta16, Warszawa
2017 Kajetan Sosnowski.
Obrazy szyte, Galeria Spa Spot, Nałęczów
2019 Kajetan Sosnowski (1913 - 1987), Muzeum Ziemi Lubuskiej, Zielona Góra
2020 Kajetan Sosnowski. Metalepseis, Galeria Beta16, Warszawa

Group exhibition:
1956 Grupa 55, Galeria Krzywe Koło, Warszawa
1957 II Wystawa Sztuki Nowoczesnej, Zachęta, Warszawa
1958 Polnische Künstler von der Modernen Galerie und Kulturhaus Warschau, Wuppertalu (Niemcy)
1959 III Wystawa Sztuki Nowoczesnej, Zachęta, Warszawa
1962 Zbiory Galerii (polska sztuka nowoczesna 1957-1961), Galeria Krzywe Koło, Warszawa
1963 Konfrontacje, Galeria Krzywe Koło, Warszawa
1963 I Parada Sztuki Współczesnej, Galeria El, Elbląg
1965 wystawa plastyki i sympozjum Złotego Grona, Zielona Góra 1965 I Biennale Form Przestrzennych, Elbląg
1965 IV Konfrontacje, Galeria El, Elbląg
1966 V Konfrontacje, Słupsk
1967 Przestrzeń – Ruch - Światło, Muzeum Sztuki Aktualnej, Wrocław 1968 wystawa poplenerowa, Łagów 68, BWA, Zielona Góra
1969 wystawa poplenerowa, Osieki 69, BWA, Koszalin
1969 IV Wystawa i Sympozjum Złotego Grona, Krytycy prezentują artystów, Zielona Góra
1969 Spotkania Krakowskie, Pałac Sztuki, Kraków
1969 wystawa sztuki polskiej (Siedmiu artystów z różnych krajów), Kopenhaga
1970 Sympozjum Plastyczne, Wrocław 70, Wrocław
1970 5 Salon Marcowy 70 – malarstwo geometryczne, Galeria BWA i Galeria Pegaz, Zakopane
1971 Kajetan Sosnowski, Roman Opałka, Jerzy Rosołowicz, Galeria LP220, Turyn 1973 Moderne polsk Kunst, Kopenhaga
1973 Moderne polsk Kunst, Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum, Aalborg
1974 Sympozjum, Fakty 74 Wrocław, Wrocław
1975 Krytycy sztuki proponują. Trzydzieści dzieł na 30-lecie, Zachęta, Warszawa
1975 Aspekty sztuki nowoczesnej, Galeria Współczesna, Warszawa 1975 VII Sympozjum i Wystawa Złotego Grona, Przestrzeń człowieka, Zielona Góra
1975 Kunstmesse, Kolonia
1976 9 Polskich Artystów, Galeria R. J. Ricard, Norymberga
1976 Targi Sztuki Art 76, Bazylea
1976 Sztuka i nauka – Struktury, Dom Artysty-Plastyka, Warszawa
1977 Laureaci Nagrody Krytyki im. C. K. Norwida, Dom Artysty-Plastyka, Warszawa
1978 wystawa poplenerowa, Galerii 72, Chełm
1979 wystawa zorganizowana w 100-lecie urodzin Alberta Einsteina, Muzeum Techniki, Pałac Kultury i Nauki, Warszawa
1980 wystawa malarstwa polskiego, Galeria Depolma, Düsseldorf
1980 35 lat malarstwa polskiego, Muzeum Narodowe, Poznań
1980 Tendencje konstruktywistyczne, Dom Artysty Plastyka, Warszawa
1980 Galeria Andrzeja Ekwińskiego, Nörrköping, Szwecja
1984 Język geometrii, Zachęta, Warszawa
1984 Małe jest piękne, pokaz zorganizowany przez Ryszarda Winiarskiego, Galeria Zapiecek, Warszawa
1984 Między konstrukcją a strukturą, wystawa zorganizowana przez Janusza Zagrodzkiego w ramach imprezy Nurt intelektualny w sztuce polskiej po II wojnie światowej, BWA, Lublin
1985 wystawa warszawskiego środowiska plastycznego, Zachęta, Warszawa
1985 Międzynarodowe Targi Sztuki, Interart 86, Poznań
1985 III Plener dla artystów posługujących się językiem geometrii Geometria i wyraz, Okuninka
1986 poplenerowa wystawa Geometria i wyraz, Galerii 72, Chełm 1986 Międzynarodowe Targi Sztuki Interart, Poznań
1986 międzynarodowa wystawa, The Corner, Galeria Hoffmann, Friedberg
1987 wystawa zbiorowa, Freirau – vier Generationen konstruktivistischer Strömungen in der polnischen Kunst, Kunstation, Kleinsassen
1988 międzynarodowa wystawa sztuki nurtu konstruktywistycznego, Null-Dimension, Galeria New Space, Langen Bieber, Niemcy
1988 Geometria i metafora, Galeria Budapest, Budapeszt
1997 Pokolenia, Zachęta, Warszawa 1998 Konstruktive Kunst in Polen aus dem Museum von Chelm, Galeria Schwarzes Kloster, Freiburg 1998 Niekończąca się linia, Fundacja Gerarda na Rzecz Sztuki Współczesnej, Ṡwierardów-Zdrój
1999 Konstruktive Kunst in Polen aus dem Museum von Chelm, Tiroler Kunstpavilon, Innsbruck
2000 Konkret östliches Mitteleuropa, Residenzschloss, Drezno
2000 Abstrakcja-Abstrakcja. Sztuka polska w drugiej połowie XX w., Galeria r, Poznań
2002 Artyści Galerii 72, wystawa przygotowana z okazji jubileuszu 30-lecia Galerii 72, Muzeum Ziemi Chełmskiej, Chełm
2005 Sztuka lat 50-tych w 50 rocznicę Arsenału, Królikarnia, Warszawa
2005 Ci którzy odeszli – Artyści Galerii 72, Muzeum Chełmskie, Galeria 72, Chełm
2005 Motiva, Austria Center Vienna, Wiedeń
2005 Znane i nieznane obrazy artystów chełmskich XX wieku, Muzeum Chełmskie, Chełm
2006 W Polsce, czyli gdzie?, Zamek Ujazdowski, Warszawa
2007 Obrazy Sosnowskiego pokazane są w ramach Galerii Sztuki XX wieku 1945-1955 ze zbiorów Muzeum Narodowego, Warszawa
2007 Asteizm w Polsce – dowcip i władza sądzenia, Zamek Ujazdowski, Warszawa
2008 Zapisy przemian – abstrakcje. Sztuka polska po 1945 r., Zachęta, Warszawa
2008 Sztuka geometrycznej harmonii, BWA, Lublin
2009 Nabytki 2007–2009. Galeria 72, kolekcja sztuki współczesnej Muzeum Ziemi Chełmskiej, Muzeum Ziemi Chełmskiej, Galeria 72, Chełm
2009 Kolekcja zdarzeń, Atlas Sztuki, Łódź 2010 Mistrzowie Galerii 72, pokaz przygotowany w ramach wystawy „Skarby przeszłości" zorganizowanej z okazji jubileuszu 90-lecia Muzeum Ziemi Chełmskiej w Chełmie, Galeria 72, Chełm
2010 W stulecie abstrakcji, Muzeum Narodowe, Gdańsk
2010 Kolekcja dzieł sztuki Bożeny Kowalskiej, Mazowieckie Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Elektrownia, Warszawa
2011 Malarstwo
monochromatyczne z kolekcji Galerii 72, Muzeum Ziemi Chełmskiej w Chełmie, Galeria 72, Chełm
2012 W labiryncie sztuki, Galeria Labirynt, Lublin
2012 Sztuka lat 50. i 60. XX wieku z kolekcji Galerii 72, Muzeum Ziemi Chełmskiej w Chełmie, Galeria 72, Chełm
2012 Black White and Grey z kolekcji Galerii 72, Muzeum Ziemi Chełmskiej w Chełmie, Galeria 72, Chełm
2013 Geometria i metafora z kolekcji Galerii 72, wystawa przygotowana z okazji jubileuszu 40-lecia Galerii 72, Muzeum Południowego Podlasia w Białej Podlaskiej
2016 Sztuka lat 70. XX wieku ze zbiorów Galerii 72, Muzeum Ziemi Chełmskiej, Galeria 72, Chełm
2017 Sztuka lat 80. XX wieku z kolekcji Galerii 72, Muzeum Archidiecezji Warszawskiej, zbiorów rodzinnych oraz pracowni artystów, Muzeum Ziemi Chełmskiej, Galeria 72, Chełm
2018 Cienie reliefów, Desa Unicum, Warszawa
2020 Odmienne postawy – cztery przestrzenie. Mistrzowie współczesności z kolekcji Galerii 72, Muzeum Ziemi Chełmskiej w Chełmie, Galeria 72, Chełm
2020 Michał Budny, Kajetan Sosnowski. Uklad równowartościowy, Galeria Raster, Warszawa
2021 Konfrontacje i Argumenty. Sztuka nowoczesna według założeń Galerii Krzywe Koło, Fundacja Stefana Gierowskiego, Warszawa 2021/2022 Kolekcja Dostępna - wystawa, Galeria Labirynt, Lublin

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