Ignacy PIEÑKOWSKI, Azaleas

oil, canvas, 100 x 80 cm, signed p.d.: Ign. Pienkowski.

Painter, graphic artist, educator. Educated at Gerson's Drawing Class in Warsaw, he continued his painting studies at Axentowicz and Wyczółkowski's SSP in Cracow, as well as in Munich and Paris. He spent a year in Rome, spent four years in Paris and visited Italy. After returning to Warsaw, he took up a professorship at the local SSP, and after World War I became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. His students included Brzozowski, Cybis, Kantor, Larisch, among others. Known mainly for his still lifes and portraits, he also painted landscapes, symbolic compositions (in his early work), religious compositions, and was involved in printmaking.