Dimensions: 60 x 73 cm
signed p.d.: 'ADAM | STYKA'.
on the frame a paper inventory sticker with the number: '56', on the painter's loom auction stickers
Origins
private collection, France
Literature
compare Wacyf Boutros-Ghali, Les Perles éparpillées. Contes et légendes arabes, ed. by M. Chulliat, Paris 1923 (publication containing photogravures based on paintings by Adam Styka)
Biography
He was the son of painter Jan and younger brother of Tadeusz Styka, an Orientalist painter. He studied mathematics and engineering, and later began his studies at the École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris (1908- 1912). At the beginning of his career he painted genre scenes, but after a trip to North Africa he painted mainly oriental paintings. He found motifs during, repeatedly, trips to Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Egypt. He exhibited his works mainly abroad, but in the interwar period he also had several exhibitions in Poland, including at Warsaw's Zachęta Gallery. These shows were always very popular with the public, and the exhibited paintings found many buyers. He also painted religious paintings and was involved in book illustration, including designing illustrations for 'In Desert and Wilderness' by H. Sienkiewicz. After World War II, the artist lived and worked in the United States - he painted landscapes and inhabitants of Mexico and Arizona, and especially a lot of religious paintings.
