Leon Kapliński
1826 - 1873

Leon Kapliński was born to a family of impoverished landed gentry. At first, he studied law, however, his underground political activities in which he was intensely engaged, prevented him from continuous studies. Beginning in 1844, he was a member of the so-called "Brotherhood," a self-educating group led by Felicjan Faleński. In late 1844, fearing repressions, he moved to Wrocław where he studied philosophy. There he met his first drawing teacher, Count Seweryn Mielżyński. Again, he was actively engaged in the conspiratorial pro-independence movement, and in 1846 was arrested and put on trial in Berlin, together with Ludwik Mierosławski. Released in 1847, he took part in military actions around Miłosław in 1848.

In 1849 or 1850, he left for Paris, where he first studied in the studios of Ara Schaffer and Michael Martin Drolling as well as Nicolas Robert-Fleury in École des Beaux-Arts. He was a friend of Henryk Rodakowski, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Aleksander Fredro and Julian Klaczko. He often visited the house of an excellent pianist, Duchess Marcelina Potocka. In 1852, he went to Wrocław and Brussels, where he met poet Teofil Lenartowicz who later became his friend. The year 1857 was spent in Galicia, Kraków, Dzików and Lvov. In the years 1861-62, he made trips to Rome, the Balkans and the Near East with the Czartoryski family. As a result, in 1862, he became a member of the Hôtel Lambert Bureau. An editor and publisher of the periodical Éphémérides Polonaises he reported on the January uprising. At this time, he also painted his best works. In 1871, he returned to Poland where, moving often, he lived in Kraków, Miłosław and Lvov, among other places.

His works were regularly exhibited in the Kraków Association of Friends of Fine Arts, at Parisian Salons (1857-1870), in the Warsaw Society of Fine Arts, Zachęta (1861, 1874, 1876), in World Exhibitions in Paris (1867) and in Vienna (1873).

Being a versatile artist, he could not decide on just one artistic genre. He also wrote several novels, i.e. an autobiographical book On Vistula. He was also a literary and art critic. His opinions, as noted by Łukasz Krzywka who long studied Kapliński's works, place him somewhere between amateur and professional. The best description would be that of a painting gentleman.

Kapliński’s portraits constitute the major part of his oeuvre. Their artistic value was noticed as early as 1896 by Jerzy Mycielski, who wrote: "Kapliński was first of all an extraordinary portraitist, after Rodakowski he was no doubt the most gifted among Polish artists who started painting after 1850”. He created imaginative portraits of Polish national heroes (Chodkiewicz and Czarniecki), painted scenes full of symbolism and martyrdom referring to current political events (Gentry and People, Executioner and Victim) and, less often, historical compositions, usually inspired by literary works such as poems by Adam Mickiewicz, Zygmunt Krasiński, Teofil Lenartowicz and Antoni Malczewski (Confession of Jacek Soplica, Miecznik and Wacław). He also reproduced works of Old Masters from the Louvre. His landscapes were close in style to those of the School of Barbizon. His illustrations appeared in Warsaw periodicals such as Tygodnik Ilustrowany and Kłosy, as well as Illustration.

-- Anna Król

Works in the collection: