Dimensions: 64 x 50 cm
Signed on the right, inside the composition: 'WWeiss'
Origin
DESA Unicum, October 2010
private collection, Warsaw
Biography
He was born in Leorda, Bukovina, Romania. His father's profession as a railroader left a clear mark on the artist's later work, which repeatedly returned to railroad motifs (Płaszów, Strzyżów). He was educated initially in Lviv, and then, after moving to Podgórze, in Cracow. In 1892, thanks to the favor of Jan Matejko, he was admitted immediately to the second year of studies at the Cracow School of Fine Arts. During his education he made his first trip to Europe and visited Paris. Under his influence, and after meeting Stanislaw Przybyszewski, decadent expressionist tendencies began to grow in his work. He finished his studies at Leon Wyczółkowski's major in 1898. Later that year he took part in the "Art" exhibition and began working with the Cracow "Life". In 1899-1903, he made regular trips to the Podkarpackie town of Strzyżów, where his sister lived with her husband and children at the train station. It was there that the artist's most important symbolist-expressive works were created, with "Possession" or "Radiant Sunset" at the forefront. In 1901 he received a scholarship from Count Michal Tyszkiewicz, which he used to travel to Italy. He visited Rome and Venice, among other places, to which he returned with particular pleasure.
In 1904 he purchased a house in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. This place became his asylum and space for numerous plein-air paintings for the following years. During this time there was a shift from catastrophism to affirmation of life, nature and the world. In 1905 begins the so-called "white period" in his work, which would last until 1912, and in which Weiss dramatically lightens his color palette and is inspired by the art of Japan. In 1907, Irena Silberger (Aneri) arrives in Krakow and the artist marries her a year later. This is a time of thriving career development for Weiss. He becomes a member of the Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Krakow, the Vienna Secession, as well as president of "Art". The 1920s is a period of family and artistic stability. The Weiss family moves to a villa designed for them by Tadeusz Stryjeński and Franciszek Mączyński at 31 Krupnicza St. The interwar period will abound in numerous nudes, still lifes and landscapes maintained in the spirit of the old masters and not devoid of reflections of modern currents in art, such as French Impressionism. Weiss often visited southern Europe at the time, especially Nice, where Aneri's sister Maria Sperling, also a painter, lived. In the 1930s, the artist took regular plein-air painting trips with his wife to the Baltic Sea. He also willingly travelled to Ojców and Poronin. Still a regular place of his artistic struggles was Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. In 1948 he received the Award of the City of Cracow for lifetime achievement.
