Henryk Rauchinger
1823 - 1894

Henryk Rauchinger was a student of Jan Matejko at the School of Fine Arts in Kraków in 1878-1879. Thanks to scholarships he was able to continue his education at the Academy in Vienna under August Eisenmenger and Christian Griepenkerl. Having been awarded the Prix de Rome, he continued his studies in the Italian metropolis, but later he settled in Vienna. In 1914, he won a competition to decorate the altarpiece at the church of St. Elizabeth in Vienna. A reviewer for Świat called this event: "extraordinary, considering that the German committee [...] decided to put a Polish artist [...] in charge of effectuating the main picture. The painting won unanimous recognition of all the critics in Vienna" (see Świat, 1914). The same year the artist was granted the title of court painter for Emperor Francis Joseph I.

Rauchinger painted religious compositions (Christ Resurrecting a Dead Woman), historical, patriotic and martyrological scenes (Death of an Exile), landscapes (Serpentine Road on the Island of Capri), portraits and genre scenes (Italian Woman, Man from Tirol, Head of a Russian Peasant). According to Swieykowski, Rauchinger was also recognized as an illustrator. Rauchinger's oeuvre is hardly known in Poland.

His works were exhibited at home and abroad, for instance at the Society of Friends of the Fine Arts in Kraków (1883, 1899), in Viennese Künstlerhaus, in London (1906), and in Rome at the International Exhibition of Art (in the Austrian sector, 1911). He also contributed to the first exhibition of the group "Zero" at the Palace of Art in Kraków (1908).

-- Anna Król

Works in the collection: