Dimensions: 19 x 25.5 cm
Inscribed on the reverse in red crayon: '215' and in pencil: 'Cat. No. 285'; a paper deposit slip from the National Museum in Warsaw with numbers from the artist’s estate: '232 [crossed out] poppy | 237', on the frame: a paper deposit label from the National Museum in Warsaw, a paper auction label, and a label with a description of the painting
Provenance
the artist’s estate
Kamilla Grocholska’s collection, Kraków
Art-B Art Collection
Agra-Art Auction House, March 2005
private collection, Poland
Bibliography
Władysława Jaworska, Tadeusz Makowski: Life and Work, Wrocław-Warsaw-Kraków 1964, p. 336, cat. no. 285
Biography
Tadeusz Makowski is one of the most outstanding Polish artists of the first half of the 20th century. He was a painter, printmaker, and draftsman. From 1903 to 1908, he studied at the Kraków Academy under Józef Unierzyski, Józef Mehoffer, and Jan Stanisławski; at the same time, he studied philology at Jagiellonian University. In 1908, via Munich, he traveled to Paris, where he settled permanently. From there, he would travel for the summer seasons to Brittany, Auvergne, and the south of France. He also undertook an artistic journey to the Netherlands and Belgium (1921). In Paris, he was friends with many distinguished painters, writers, and art dealers. He maintained close ties with Polish artists living in France and served as president of the Paris-based “Society of Polish Artists.” He exhibited his works in Poland—in Kraków and Warsaw (from 1907) and Lviv (1910)—as well as abroad: in Paris, Barcelona, Vienna, Budapest, and Amsterdam. He painted figurative compositions, landscapes, still lifes, and portraits, especially of children. By experimenting with Cubist painting, he developed his own individual style. Through form, color, and light—as well as a certain degree of distortion—he created paintings that were full of lyricism, though at times not without a touch of irony or mockery.
