Leon Wyczółkowski, PORTRET WANDY KOSSUTHÓWNY, 1892

52.9 x 39.0 cm - pastel, cardboard pastel, cardboard glued on cardboard, 52.9 x 39 cm

sign. p.g.: L. Wyczółkowski | 1892

on the reverse:

- sticker (stamp, print, ink): [1]598 | Author Wyczółkowski Leon | Title Portrait of Miss K. | Execution pas[tel] | Price ... | Wł. K. Kozłowski Pierackiego 16 | Date 9 SIER. 1937;

- below: Portrait of a girl (Wanda Kossuthówna) | Property of Mrs. Wanda née Kossuth Kozłowska;

- below: P.P.H.U. Desa label (print, stamp, pencil) 20. IV 87 Wyczółkowski "Portrait of a Woman" | P.P. "DESA" | Store | Warehouse 1 | K I Register no. 252 / I 57 I Price PLN 3500,-;

- p.g. sticker: ARTYSTYCZNA WYTWÓR[NIA] | RAM | F. BURDYŃSKI | WARSZAWA BRACKA 18.



Provenance: Wanda Czesława Kozłowska, née Kossuth (Lodz 1881 - Warsaw 1967) was Wyczółkowski's cousin on his father's side. Wanda was the daughter of Stefan Ludwik Kossuth and Karolina, née Gumowska. Between 1909 and 1911 she married Karol Kozłowski.



The painting exhibited, reproduced and mentioned:

- Leon Wyczółkowski 1852-1936 Paintings Works, Guide 125, TZSP in Warsaw, IX 1937, p. 23, cat. no. 29, il. p. 84 [nlb];

- Leon Wyczółkowski's letters and memoirs [compiled by M. Twarowska], Ossolineum Publishers, Wrocław 1960, pp. 64, 196;

- K. Kulig-Janarek, W. Milewska, Leon Wyczółkowski 1852-1939: The 150th anniversary of the artist's birth, National Museum in Cracow 2003, pp. 13, 44.



Wyczółkowski's early work quickly earned him recognition as an excellent portraitist. A special place in his oeuvre is occupied by likenesses of people from his circle of family, acquaintances and friends, as Roman Konik writes: The face of an acquaintance or friend in a portrait then became not only an image to be recognized, but the figure contained a separate world, with shared memories, stories, jokes and experienced worries. Perhaps this is why the best portraits from under the artist's brush or pencil are those of people the artist knew well (R. Konik, Leon Wyczółkowski. Portrait of a Painter, published by Take Care, Bydgoszcz 2019, p. 190).

Undoubtedly, the image of Wanda Kossuthówna is among these masterpieces. It is known that the artist portrayed his cousin several times. She also posed for him for Digging for Beets, created in 1896. One of Wanda's portraits was in the possession of the famous Warsaw collector Bronislaw Krystall (1887-1983).

On the occasion of the opening of the new building in 1938, he donated it to the National Museum in Warsaw. Recalling the pastel on offer, Renata Higersberger describes the work: Painted in an impressionist manner, the unfinished portrait sketch of a young woman depicts the painter's cousin on his father's side. The artist had already immortalized Wanda Kossuth in pastel technique (57 x 40.5 cm). The masterful handling of light is close to the shimmering effects of the figures' outlines in the 1895 plein-air work "A Game of Croquet" (digital.mnw.art.pl).

The offered pastel was created during the impressionist period in Wyczółkowski's work, which fell between 1890 and 1896. His works created during this period place him in the vanguard of the transformations of Polish painting at the time. Wyczółkowski's impressionism was not just a faithful imitation of the French masters, as Marian Turwid aptly put it: Wyczółkowski stepped out of realism, and by studying light and color he ceased to be a realist. The experience of the Impressionists and his own studies in the open air only enriched the workshop of the realist, as later studies of Japanese graphics taught the realist the economy of expression, sometimes reaching an impressive syntheticity of shots (M. Turwid, quoted in Museums of Kuyavia and Pomerania. Bydgoszcz. Leon Wyczółkowski, published by Margrafsen, Bydgoszcz 2012, p. 32).

The laughing face of the young Wanda is constructed with the impressionist method of unmixing colors and applying pure pigments side by side with tiny quick, intense strokes of crayon. It was in 1892 that the artist, who had previously used oil technique, begins to use pastels. The offered portrait of Kossuthówna is therefore one of the first works made in the technique in which the artist achieved full mastery.

Leon Wyczółkowski (Huta Miastkowska near Siedlce 1852 - Warsaw 1936) - painter, graphic artist and educator, was one of the most outstanding Polish artists creating at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. He began his artistic studies at the Warsaw Drawing Class under Wojciech Gerson and Aleksander Kaminski (1869-1873), then continued them at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts under Aleksander Wagner (1875-1877), in Cracow under Jan Matejko (1877/78) and during two trips to Paris (1878 and 1889). After his studies, he settled in Lviv and later moved to Warsaw. He spent the years 1883-1893 traveling in Ukraine and Podolia. In 1895 he moved to Cracow appointed as a lecturer at the School of Fine Arts there. In the following years he traveled extensively - to Italy, France, Spain, Holland, England. He was one of the founding members of the Society of Polish Artists "Art". He exhibited a lot both at home and abroad. He spent the years 1929-1936 in Poznań and Gościeradz, commuting to Warsaw, where (from 1934) he held the chair of graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts. He painted landscapes, portraits, genre scenes, still lifes and flowers. He readily used pastel and watercolor techniques, was an accomplished printmaker, and was also involved in sculpture.