Dimensions: 34 x 34 cm
Signed and dated p.d.: W.Bębnowski 1918'
Biography
Wacłąw Bębnowski was the youngest of four children; due to poor health, he received his education in the family home, and it was then that a special interest in art was noticed. Thanks to a family friend, painter Jan Chrucki, his parents decided to send their son to study art at the School of Painting and Sculpture in Moscow. However, due to his upbringing in the patriotic spirit, in 1888 he moves to Krakow and takes up studies at the School of Fine Arts, then headed by Jan Matejko. During this period he has his first exhibitions. In the late 1890s, he moves to Warsaw, where he begins working with artists such as Zygmunt Otto, an artist specializing in architectural sculpture. A key moment in the young sculptor's career was his meeting with Leon Wodzinski, whom he meets during his stay in Paris, the latter hires him to renovate St. John the Baptist Church in Sluzew. Due to the length of the work, the artist and his wife move to Kujawy and decide to settle there permanently. In 1905, he acquires an estate in Aleksandrów Kujawski, where he lived until his death. In addition to creating sculptures for local churches, he also toils in the applied arts, primarily ceramics. After the end of World War I, the artist begins teaching at a secondary school in Aleksandrów Kujawski. As he grew older, he exhibited less and less, and his deteriorating health prevented him from continuing his artistic work.
