Witold Pruszkowski (14 January 1846,

Bershad Bershad ( uk, Бершадь, translit., ''Bershad’''; pl, Berszad; ro, Berșad) is a town in the Vinnytsia Oblast (province) of Ukraine, located in the historic region of Podolia. It is the administrative center of the predominantly-agricult ...

- 10 October 1896,

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

) was a Polish painter and graphic artist in the

Symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and real ...

style.

Biography

He spent his childhood in

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrat ...

and Kiev. The family emigrated to

Dieppe Dieppe (; Norman: ''Dgieppe'') is a coastal commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. Dieppe is a seaport on the English Channel at the mouth of the river Arques. A regular ferry service runs to Newh ...

in 1860, and he relocated to Paris in 1866, where he had his first drawing lessons with the portrait painter,

Tadeusz Gorecki Tadeusz Gorecki (5 June 1825, Dusinėnai, near Vilnius - 31 January 1868, Vichy) was a Lithuanian-born Polish genre and portrait painter. Biography He came from an aristocratic family. His father was the poet and short story writer, Antoni Gor ...

, the son-in-law of

Adam Mickiewicz Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (; 24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish ...

. From 1869 to 1872, he studied at the

Academy of Fine Arts, Munich The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (german: Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, also known as Munich Academy) is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, ...

with Alexander von Wagner then, from 1872 to 1875, at the

Kraków Academy of Fine Arts The Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków ( pl, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych im. Jana Matejki w Krakowie, usually abbreviated to ''ASP''), is a public institution of higher education located in the centre of Kraków, Poland. It is the oldest P ...

with

Jan Matejko Jan Alojzy Matejko (; also known as Jan Mateyko; 24 June 1838 – 1 November 1893) was a Polish painter, a leading 19th-century exponent of history painting, known for depicting nodal events from Polish history. His works include large scale oil ...

.Brief biography and appreciation
@ Culture.pl In 1882, he settled in Mników. Over the next few years, he and his brother travelled to Algeria, Tunisia and Italy. He also held several exhibitions in Warsaw and

Lwów Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...

. Later, he exhibited internationally, including shows in San Francisco and Chicago. In 1892, he became a member of the construction committee for a monument to

Artur Grottger Artur Grottger (11 November 1837 – 13 December 1867) was a Polish Romantic painter and graphic artist, one of the most prominent artists of the mid 19th century under the foreign partitions of Poland, despite a life cut short by incurable ill ...

. He was ill for several years before his death. While visiting with family in Kołomyja, he suddenly disappeared. He was found at the train station in Budapest, suffering from extreme exhaustion, and was taken to a hospital, where he died two days later. Although he painted portraits and rural scenes, he is best known for his depictions of fairy tales and folklore; working in

pastel A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those us ...

s as well as oils. He also drew inspiration from the works of

Juliusz Słowacki Juliusz Słowacki (; french: Jules Slowacki; 4 September 1809 – 3 April 1849) was a Polish Romantic poet. He is considered one of the " Three Bards" of Polish literature — a major figure in the Polish Romantic period, and the father of m ...

and

Zygmunt Krasiński Napoleon Stanisław Adam Feliks Zygmunt Krasiński (; 19 February 1812 – 23 February 1859) was a Polish poet traditionally ranked after Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki as one of Poland's Three Bards – the Romantic poets who influence ...

. His most familiar work is, perhaps, "March to Siberia", painted in 1893. Its whereabouts were unknown for many years, but it was found in a private collection after World War II and is now in the

Lviv National Art Gallery Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery ( uk, Львівська Національна Галерея Мистецтв імені Бориса Возницького) is the largest art museum in Ukraine, with over 62,000 artworks in its colle ...

Selected paintings

File:Pruszkowski Falling star.jpg, Falling Star, 1884,

National Museum, Warsaw The National Museum in Warsaw ( pl, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie), popularly abbreviated as MNW, is a national museum in Warsaw, one of the largest museums in Poland and the largest in the capital. It comprises a rich collection of ancient art ( E ...

File:Witold Pruszkowski-Sielanka.jpg, Idyll, 1880,

National Museum, Kraków The National Museum in Kraków ( pl, Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie), popularly abbreviated as MNK, is the largest museum in Poland, and the main branch of Poland's National Museum, which has several independent branches with permanent collections arou ...

File:Pruszkowski When the morning glows arise.jpg, When Dawn is Breaking, 1876,

File:Pruszkowski-Bachantka.jpg,

Maenad In Greek mythology, maenads (; grc, μαινάδες ) were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones". Maenads were known as Bassarids, ...

, 1885,

References

External links

ArtNet: More works by Pruszkowski.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pruszkowski, Witold 19th-century Polish painters 19th-century Polish male artists Polish draughtsmen 1846 births 1896 deaths People from Bershad Polish portrait painters Symbolism (arts) Polish male painters

Biography

Selected paintings

References

Further reading

External links