Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885 Warsaw - 1939 Jeziory in Polesia), Portrait of Maria Plucińska née Niklas, 1919.

charcoal and pastel, beige paper, 57.4 x 48.7 cm (light frame)
Signed and dated l.g.: T.B.+E/ Ignacy/ Witkiewicz/ 1919


PROVENANCE:
private collection, Warsaw

The painting is accompanied by an expert opinion of Witkacologist Dr. Anna Żakiewicz (curator and author of many exhibitions and publications about Witkacy, curator of Witkacy's collection at the National Museum in Warsaw) dated 2024.

"After returning from Russia, where he spent the years of World War I, Witkacy continued the activity he had begun there of making portraits in charcoal and pastels. Generally, the artist received royalties for them, but sometimes he returned portraits for the most varied favors - loans, hospitality, medical care. In 1919-1920, he portrayed several members of the Niklas family, probably in return for hospitality in Krakow, at 17 Radziwillowska Street, according to the artist's letter to Emil Breiter dated November 4, 1919. (see S.I. Witkiewicz, Letters I, compiled by T. Pawlak, Warsaw 2013, p. 554), in which he asks for letters to be sent to this very address, in the name of the Plucinski family. After all, one of the daughters of Matylda and Stanisław Niklas, Maria married Kazimierz Pluciński, who lived with his wife's family. It is likely that Witkacy also lived at this address during the period of his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, which we know from the mention in his letter to Bronislaw Malinowski (see S.I. Witkiewicz, Letters to Bronislaw Malinowski, ed. E.C. Martinek, Warsaw 1981, p. 39). Kazimierz Pluciński (died in 1940 in Dachau), was a classical philologist, a teacher of Latin and Greek at the Jan Sobieski Gymnasium in Cracow in the years 1912-1926, moreover, he was friends with artists from the circle of the Green Balloon, hence probably acquaintance with Witkacy, who also belonged to this group.
The portrait of Maria Plucińska, née Niklas (1895-1941) was painted in 1919. Witkacy treated the woman's bust, especially her face, realistically, in accordance with the requirements and tradition of the genre, while the background - the backrest of an armchair and the wall with a picture hanging on it and a fragment of drapery marked on it - is drawn schematically. The color scheme of the portrait is sparing - it was drawn mainly in charcoal, with sparing touches of white in the background and a delicate pink on the lips.
What draws attention is the woman's somewhat anachronistic hairstyle - remarkably similar to the hairstyle of Witkacy's fiancée Jadwiga Janczewska, known from numerous photographs, who committed suicide in February 1914. The resemblance to the deceased beloved woman, combined with the model's delicate beauty and the sadness visible in her face, probably fascinated the artist, who marked the portrait with the annotation "T.B + E," indicating that it was originally intended to be a traditional, objective image (T.B), but in the course of its execution Witkacy decided to deepen its psychological interpretation, because according to the Rules and Regulations of the one-man Portrait Company "S.1. Witkiewicz" formulated in 1925, the E type was such an assumption. In practice - in this convention, the artist portrayed women who interested him in something, or simply liked him." (Quoted excerpts are from the expert opinion of Dr. Anna Żakiewicz)