Adam Styka, GORAL FROM ZAKOPANE, 1933

69.7 x 55.5cm - oil, canvas pasted on cardboard signed p.d.: Zakopane 1933 | ADAM | STYKA [in frame].



On the reverse:

- twice circular stamp [...] | PARIS | EXPOSITION;

- next to it, along the left edge, the number referring to the catalog position at the exhibition in Brussels (in pencil): no. 33;

- at top edge, center, sticker of shipping company (print, stamp, ink): [ROB]INOT Freres | [...]LITÉ d'EMBALLAGE et TRANSPORT | D'OBJETS D'ART | 18, Rue Yvart - PARIS (15e) | Téléph.: VAUGIRARD 10-69 | 18742 B [framed] | M Styka | Exposition: Bruxelles;

- below number (in pencil): RF 351e/;

- Also, l.d. sticker of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw (stamp, print, typescript, ink): 24775 Author Styka Adam 24775 | Title Highlander from Zakopane execution ol. | Price Owner Date 10. Feb. 1933



Adam Styka traveled to Africa early in his career, from where he brought back new colors, full of sunshine, and captured local life on his canvases. This is what became the hallmark of his work. He did not focus solely on the exotic landscape, but explored, like an ethnographer, the local people, immortalizing their daily activities and customs. Adam Styka was a "painter of the sun," whose canvases were distinguished by saturated, contrasting colors. The framed views were like windows from which the blinding African sun beat down.

The lighting effects in his paintings, involving the use of almost bright colors, with an uncanny ability to harmonize the splendor of his palette's colors and by skillfully dispensing them, are unique in contemporary painting. His blues are clear as crystal, and his rusty reds are amazingly saturated with heat. The artist portrays real types of people in an atmosphere of lurid lights....

Pierre Bearn [in:] Cz. Czaplinski, Saga of the Styka Family, New York, 1988 p. 146

Highlander from Zakopane presents the same characteristics. The painting, dated by the artist in 1933, must have been created in January. Despite the winter aura, the face of the old highlander is bathed in a warm, almost African, setting sun. Straight from Zakopane, the canvas went to Warsaw's Zachęta gallery for an exhibition in February. From there, along with other works, it left for an exhibition in Brussels in April. The painting probably remained in Adam Styka's collection until it found its way to the friendly French Schlockoff family. Paul Schlockoff was a close acquaintance of the artist, whom Adam Styka entrusted with the management of his business in France after he left for America. Schlockoff was not only in charge of selling the artist's paintings, but also the Paris apartment at 5 Place Pigalle.



Painting exhibited, described and reproduced in:

- Guide 81, Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts, Warsaw II 1933, p. 11, cat. no. 174 [Highlander from Zakopane];

- "World," 1933 no. 8 (25 II), il. p. 17 [Highlander];

- Adam Styka, Exposition Aux Galeries du Studio, Brussels 21 IV - 4 V 1933, cat. no. 33 [Vieux montagnard polonais];

- Report of the Committee for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw for 1933, p. 31 [Highlander from Zakopane].





♣ a fee will be added to the auctioned price in addition to other costs, based on the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Law of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite).

Adam Styka (Kielce 1890 - New York 1959) - son of painter Jan and younger brother of Tadeusz Styka - was an Orientalist painter. He initially studied mathematics and engineering, and later entered the École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris (1908-1912). During World War I he served in General J. Haller's Blue Army - first in France (medal for the Battle of Verdun), then in Poland. As a painter, he began with genre scenes, but after a trip to North Africa, he created 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 willing buyers. Adam Styka also painted religious paintings (the well-known painting of Christ the King; 1944; for the Palotine Fathers in Warsaw; destroyed in a fire in 2007) and was involved in book illustration, including the illustrations for "In Desert and Wilderness" by H. Sienkiewicz. After World War II, the artist lived and worked in the United States - painting landscapes and inhabitants of Mexico or Arizona, as well as - especially numerous - paintings of religious subjects. He also directed conservation work on the Golgotha panorama, the work of his father, Jan Styka (unveiled after restoration in 1951 in Los Angeles).