Henryk Stażewski was a Polish painter, visual artist and writer. Stażewski has been described as the "father of the Polish avant-garde" and is considered a pivotal figure in the history of constructivism and geometric abstraction in Central and Eastern Europe. His career spanned seven decades and he was one of the few prominent Polish artists of the interwar period who remained active and gained further international recognition in the second half of the 20th century.