Dimensions: 64.5 x 80.5 cm
signed l.d.: 'Kramsztyk'
State of preservation
opinion of Renata Piatkowska dated August 29, 2014
Origin
DESA Unicum, March 2015
private collection, Poland
Biography
He began studying painting in Warsaw, where he studied drawing and painting with Z. Stankiewicz, A. E. Herstein and M. Kotarbiński. He continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow under J. Mehoffer (1903/1904) and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. After 1918, he supplemented his artistic studies at Herstein's studio in Berlin. He spent the years 1910-1914 in Paris, where he joined the Society of Polish Artists and the Polish Art and Literary Society, which was reactivated in 1915. In 1917 he joined the First Exhibition of Polish Expressionists organized at the Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Cracow, a manifestation of the first wave of the Polish avant-garde. In 1918 he became a member of the New Group, which he formed with Tadeusz Pruszkowski and Eugeniusz Zak, among others. He participated in shows of Polish art in Barcelona, Paris, Stockholm, Brussels, Pittsburgh and Moscow. In addition, he participated in the International Exhibition of Art and Technology in Paris in 1937 and the World Exhibition in New York in 1939. At home, he exhibited his works in Warsaw's Zachęta Gallery (from 1909 to 1924), TPSP in Lviv, Krakow and Poznan, and participated in the Paris Salons. In 1922, he settled permanently in Paris. In the same year he became a co-founder of the Association of Polish Artists RYTM, representing the classicizing trend in Polish art of the 1920s. He painted portraits, still lifes and landscapes. "The formation of Kramsztyk's artistic attitude was significantly influenced by Cézanne's aesthetics. In his landscapes and still lifes, the artist attached fundamental importance to the structure of the painting built from geometrized forms. He brought out vegetal, architectural and object shapes with soft, short brushstrokes and surrounded them with delicate contours. He limited the range of colors to muted blues, greens and reds enlivened by accents of white; in portraits he used expressive chiaroscuro modeling." - Irena Kossowska
