Oil on cardboard, signed on the underside: "L.Kowalski"
Dimensions in frame: 35x43 cm (21X30 cm)
Leon Kowalski (Kyiv 1870 - 1937 Kraków) - began his studies at Nikolai Murashka's painting school in Kyiv. He continued his studies in 1891-93 at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow under Władysław Łuszczkiewicz, Leopold Loeffler and Leon Wyczółkowski. After receiving a scholarship from the National Department, he left for further studies in Munich, where he attended the studio of Karl Raupp (1894), and then to Paris, where he studied with Jean Paul Laurens, Jean Paul Benjamin Constant and Ernest Girardot. He then traveled around France, Italy and Germany. Since 1905, he lived in Cracow, where he actively joined artistic life - he was a co-founder of the Zero Group (1908) and the Union of General Artists (1911). He spent the years 1912-20 in Kyiv; at that time he worked at the School of Fine Arts there, and was co-organizer of the Polish School of Fine Arts (1917). After returning to Cracow, he founded the Society of Painters and Sculptors Native Art (1921) and the Cracow Circle of Graphic Artists (1929) He painted realistic portraits, genre and religious scenes, as well as landscapes, garden scenes, flowers and flowering trees.
