a speech titled "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" which disavowed Stalinism and officially ushered in the political Thaw. That year, Stażewski joined the newly opened gallery space of the Crooked Circle Club where Jerzy Nowosielski, Alina Szapocznikow, Urszula Broll, Stefan Gierowski and other contemporary painters would also exhibit their work. In around 1956, Stażewski began exploring the relief form as his medium. Using a variety of unorthodox materials that included plywood, plexiglass, cardboard, Masonite board and copper, the artist deployed diverse non-representational forms to construct three-dimensional reliefs on a horizontal pictorial surface. Stażewski's reliefs broke away from the traditional pictorial flatness and underscored the artist's interest in the tactile qualities of used materials, forging a new theoretical space with which to articulate color. Moreover, the artist's emphasis on tactility and materiality recalls the Russian Constructivist engagement with faktura, an intention to accentuate the work's physical qualities as a way to challenge traditional illusionism in painting. In 1959, Stażewski exhibited the reliefs for the first time during a solo show at Kordegarda Gallery in Warsaw. The exhibition space consisted of large, protruding panels designed by the Polish scenographer and architect Stanisław Zamecznik, contributing to what Stażewski called "relative movement," or an intention to increase the physical depth of the relief space to create a more immersive environment for the viewer. Well received by contemporary critics, the Kordegarda show helped to re-position Stażewski as a leading figure in the Polish contemporary art scene. According to art historian Marek Bartelik, Henryk Stażewski's commitment to abstraction in the post-war era speaks "to the persistence of the utopian belief in the transcendent power of abstraction: as a form of absolute universal expression." The artist's inspirations during that time were manifold and art historian notes that Stażewski "did not succumb to any stylistic categories." At the same time, scholar Christina Lodder points to the continued relevance of Russian avant-garde art, including that of Malevich, whose Suprematist Composition: Aeroplane Flying from 1915 Stażewski had reproduced in 1962. Between 1960 and 1962, Stażewski held three exhibitions at the Crooked Circle Gallery in Warsaw and continued to showcase his relief work, including a series of White Reliefs made in 1961. In August 1961, several of Stażewski's reliefs were included in Fifteen Polish Painters, a major exhibition of Polish contemporary art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, alongside works by Wojciech Fangor, Tadeusz Kantor,