Jacek Malczewski
1854 - 1929
He was born to an impoverished landowner family. He made his first drawings in Wielgie, a property of his uncle Feliks Karczewski, where he stayed in the years 1867-1871. Beginning in 1871, he lived in Kraków, it was here that he attended class V of the St. Jacek Secondary School. Then in 1873-1875) he studied at the Kraków School of Fine Arts, first with Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and Feliks Szynalewski, then later with Henryk Grabiński as well as in the composition class of Jan Matejko (whose teaching methods he questioned). In 1876, he went to Paris, where he lived until mid-1877. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, in Ernest H. Lehmann's studio. He also paid regular visits to museums and exhibitions and kept in touch both with the Polish artistic and aristocratic community. After his return to Poland, he continued his studies at the Kraków Academy in the master class of Matejko, whom he eventually broke with in 1879.
Malczewski traveled extensively; apart from other places, he visited Venice and Milan (1880), Munich (1885-1886, 1893) and Naples (1906). He spent World War I in Vienna. As a drawer-illustrator, he participated in the archaeological expedition to Greece and Asia Minor organized by Count Karol Lanckoroński.
The painting oeuvre of Malczewski consists of several thousand works of various themes: portraits, landscapes and fabulous-fantastic presentations, martyrological-patriotic and symbolic-visionary themes. He was inspired by existential and eschatological problems as well as with the problems of art and the artist's vocation. In the first period of his creativity he painted mainly realistic compositions, showing the fate of Polish exiles in Siberia and other historical pictures. Later in time, influenced by the Young Poland modernist tendencies, he turned to allegory and symbolism, taking from mythological, fantasy and literary sources (especially Romantic poetry) and creating his own, recognizable painting style. Malczewski developed certain themes into series that were continued and further developed throughout all his life. He presented his artistic program in great realizations: Introduction, Melancholy and Vicious Circle. His works were scrupulously analyzed and interpreted over and over again. The latest opinion was expressed in connection with the exhibition of his works in Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The exhibition curator Henri Loyrette wrote: "[...] just to call him 'a Symbolist' is not a complete explanation, as what predominantly strikes in his art is the perfectly natural intertwining of the mythological, the supernatural and the phantasmagoric elements with the banal everyday reality - as if nothing has occurred. It is going to be one of the driving wheels of Surrealism - it makes Malczewski one of the great predecessors of the twentieth century art. [...] But this operation never becomes a pure game of meanings, neither a mechanical epater les bourgeios effect, as with Malczewski there is a constant epic tension, political reflection and polemist strain; he never shuns basic questions, he considers the artist's position in the surrounding reality, tries to decipher various facets of his own ego, arranges the stream of unforgettable visions originating from his brain, and even for a while does not stop being a painter" (see Malczewski 2000).
He exhibited his pictures in his home country and abroad: in such places as Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Rome, Chicago and Paris (many times.) His first individual exhibition took place in Lvov in 1903, the subsequent ones in Warsaw (1910) and Poznań (1925, 1968).
He received many prizes, medals and distinctions, such as: Gold Medal on the World Expo in Berlin (1891), Silver Medal on the World Expo in Paris (1900), the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences Prize (1902), Polonia Restituta Order (1921), The artistic prize of the city of Warsaw for his oeuvre (1928) and Great Gold Medal at the General Nationwide Exhibition in Poznań (1929).
Works in the collection:
