Tadeusz Styka (1889 Kielce-1954 New York), Portrait of a woman with a dog

oil, cardboard, 78 × 53 cm
Signed l. d.: "TADÉ.STYKA."

"About [...] Tadeusz, we can also say that he knows how to see the beauty of things,
that he sees. He perceives them above all ... in a woman."

Coming from a family with painting traditions, Tadeusz Styka became famous as an outstanding portraitist, both in Europe and the United States. His portrait gallery included images of well-known personalities from the world of politics, culture (such as: Pola Negri, Ignacy Paderewski, Maurice Maeterlinck, Wladyslaw Anders, Leo Tolstoy). In 1934, an exhibition of paintings by brothers Tadeusz and Adam Styka was held in the Zlota Sala at the Grand Hotel in Lodz. This is what a critic wrote about Tadeusz's works: "Tadeusz Styka is a painter par excellence of female portraits, and as such has already made a name for himself on the foreign painting market - a well-deserved name. (...). Exquisite and noble in its northern beauty. (...) But yet in his portrait of Miss Peggy Hopkins Joyce as well as in his portrait of the dancer S. we find the salient features of the easel painting of this exquisite painter of subtle French marquises, sprightly English aristocrats and whimsical New York salon lionesses. Subtlety of drawing, almost pastel softness and delicacy in grasping the subject - this is what brings Tadeusz Styka close to the models he paints - this is what predestines him as a painter of salon madonnas."
("From Lodz Exhibitions. Adam and Tadeusz Styka in the Golden Room of the Grand-Hotel," in "Republika" No. 120, dated May 3, 1934)