Jerzy Fedkowicz
1891 - 1959

Jerzy Fedkowicz spent his childhood and youth in Podolia, receiving his secondary classical education in Zhytomir and Kherson. In 1912 he undertook law studies in Moscow, simultaneously learning painting in the private studios of I. Bolshakov and K. Junon. He continued his art education in Petersburg in the state School for Encouragement of the Fine Arts as well as in the private studios of J.J. Lansere and K. Somov. In 1914 he found himself in Kraków and upon the outbreak of the war joined the First Brigade of the Legions as a volunteer. Dismissed after some months for health reasons, he started his studies at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of Wojciech Weiss, where he met several of the future Kapists (Paris Committee abbreviated in Polish is K.P., hence, Kapists). Probably because of Zbigniew Pronaszko, he drew nearer to the circle of the Formists, with whom he exhibited three times (1919, 1921 and 1922). When he was still a student he began teaching at Ludwika Mehofferowa's private Free School of Painting and Drawing (1918-1931), and he also taught at the J.M. Hoene-Wroński Grammar School in Kraków as well as a trade school for girls.

After graduating with honors from the academy in 1921, he went to Paris the following year as the first recipient of a French government fellowship. There, he made friends with Tadeusz Makowski, Jan Rubczak and Wacław Zawadowski, among others, and came into contact with the art dealer Leopold Zborowski. On his return to Poland he associated with the "Jednorożec" (Unicorn) Artists' Guild, which cultivated the traditions of the Society of Polish Artists "Sztuka" and later, when color became his focus, with the association "Zwornik” (Keystone). He also exhibited with the Group of Ten and New Generation. When the Kapists returned to Poland, he collaborated with them, publishing in Głos Plastyków. His texts appeared as well in Sztuki Piękne and, after World War II, in Przegląd Artystyczny. At the close of the 1920s he designed stage-settings for the Słowacki Theatre in Kraków. After the war he received a professorship at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts and during the last five years of his life he acted as a dean of the Faculty of Painting. In the 1950s, as a representative of the art establishment, and one who had been awarded several prizes and state decorations, he adopted the postulates of social realism.

At the start of the 1920s he had a brief encounter with the Formists, with whom, besides social ties, he was linked through his inclination to expressionism. At that time, he used wide, flat brush marks (probably under the influence of his professor Wojciech Weiss). However, having arrived in Paris, he discovered a new pictorial tradition and, initially, chose Auguste Renoir as his master. From then on, he turned toward the exploration of chromatic values in painting. His was a special colorism, different from that of the Kapists, despite a similar general outlook on certain assumptions in painting. His works never obliterated form constructed with value contrasts, never lost the line by merging it with the brushwork and always revealed (to varying degrees) the artist's youthful attitude toward expression.

His works appeared twice at the Venice Biennale (1934, 1960). Apparently, during his lifetime he had no one-man shows.

-- Artur Tanikowski

Works in the collection: