Władysław ZAKRZEWSKI, Boats in La Rochelle

watercolor, paper, 28 x 33 cm, signed p.d.: Zakrzewski La Rochelle; 2 stickers: from an exhibition at TPSP in Krakow, 1938 (In the Port) and a posthumous exhibition at TPSP in Krakow, 1947, item 100 (In the Port of La Rochelle).

He supplemented his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow with W. Jarocki and J. Pankiewicz in 1922-24 at private painting academies in Paris. He visited Constantinople, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece and Italy. Upon his return, he became a pupil of Jan Wojnarski, and from the 1930s he worked exclusively in printmaking (copperplate, etching, aquatint, soft varnish). The most common subject matter of his works was the architecture of Polish cities, seaside and Silesian landscapes. He made a number of thematic series: Teka Śląska, Teka Morska, Warsaw, Lviv, Bielsko, Zaolzie, Krakow; he is also the author of many ex-librises. During World War II he was a soldier of the Home Army (alias "Jacek"). He produced copperplate engravings of forged documents. Murdered by a Nazi street patrol. A posthumous exhibition was organized for him at TPSP in Cracow in 1947.