Józef Mehoffer
1869 - 1946

Beginning in 1887, he studied art at the School of Fine Arts in Kraków and law at the same time, at the Jagiellonian University. A scholarship enabled him to go to Paris where he continued his studies at École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs, at Académie Colarossi and at École Nationale des Beaux-Arts (in Leon Bonnant's atelier). He traveled throughout Germany, Switzerland and France, fascinated with the gothic cathedrals of the latter. During the first phase of his stay in Paris he shared an atelier with Stanisław Wyspiański, together with whom he completed projects of stained-glass for St. Mary's church in Kraków; they also visited the same exhibitions and museums and participated in the same competitions (among others for the curtain for the Słowacki Theatre in Kraków, 1891, and for stained-glass for the Latin cathedral in Lvov, 1894).

In 1895, he won an international competition for the stained-glass of the gothic collegiate church of St. Nicolas in Fryburg, Switzerland. He finished work on it in 1936.

In 1897, he became a member-founder of the Society of Polish Artists "Sztuka." He participated in numerous international exhibitions: Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Venice and London. In 1900, Mehoffer was appointed an Assistant Professor of decorative and religious painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków; three times he served as Rector of the Academy.

He produced monumental and easel painting - portraits and landscapes - as well as engraving, designed scenery for theatres, interior decorations and furniture. An enormous influence on his paintings from the years 1891-1895 came from Puvis de Chavannes' and Whistler's works, as well as some contact with Impressionism, Symbolism and Nabi art. The artist's mature style of Young Poland (Młoda Polska), however, occurred in the years 1895-1914, when his best pictures were created. Full of feeling, replete with symbolic meanings, and decorative composition, his work Strange Garden became one of his greatest achievements. After 1914, Mehoffer made his palette brighter, even abandoning decorative patches for vibrating texture; he started painting pictures that expressed affirmation of the joy of life, beauty of the nature and a fleeting, transitory moment.

He left a diary from the years 1891-1897, and was also the author of Remarks on Art and its Attitude to Nature.

-- Anna Król

Works in the collection: