Waclaw PILECKI (1896-1956), "Manor House," 1935

Color woodcut, 15.8 x 19.5 cm,
Signed in pencil p.d.: Waclaw Pilecki 1935; signed in pencil l.d.: Color woodcut.

Painter, graphic artist, illustrator. He was born in Russia. He spent his childhood in Chelyabinsk, where he began his artistic training. In 1921 the Pileckis family arrived in Bedzin. From 1921 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow under Ignacy Pienkowski, Stanisław Kamocki and Wojciech Weiss. He spent two semesters of 1928-1929 on a scholarship in Paris with Jozef Pankiewicz. After returning from Paris, he worked as a teacher of drawing, painting and art history for more than 30 years. His artistic output, numbering about 2,000 works, included mainly portraits, landscapes, architectural views, executed in oil painting, graphic and drawing techniques, as well as frescoes commissioned by churches in Bedzin and Targoszyce, unfortunately not preserved. The most famous work is the graphic portfolio "Castle in Bedzin", containing 12 linocuts created in1935-38. " Waclaw Pilecki did not belong to the avant-garde of painting. His work was within the trend of Polish art of the interwar years of the 20th century. He was a realist, a calm observer. (...) He studied under the greatest Polish painters. In Paris he came into contact with great art." (Aleksandra Daab, "Waclaw Pilecki. Painter, Graphic Artist, Drawer," Zagłębie Museum in Bedzin, Bedzin, 2001, p. 13).