Jan Stanisławski i uczniowie z kolekcji Wandy i Leonarda Pietraszaków

Presentation of Wanda and Leonard Pietraszak's collection of Young Poland paintings.

The donated collection comprises 58 oil paintings, including 5 by Jan Stanislawski, 52 works by 37 pupils and a student, and a portrait of the donors painted by Jan Szancenbach. Among the artists of the landscapes are the names of Wlastimil Hofman, Stanisław Kamocki, Alfons Karpiński, Stanisław Gałek, Antoni Procajłowicz, Józef and Stanisław Czajkowski, Bronisław Kowalewski or Florian Piekarski.

Jan Stanislawski (1860-1907) was an eminent painter, graphic artist and teacher, and one of the most colourful figures in the Kraków artistic milieu of the Young Poland era. He is considered to be the founder of the so-called Krakow school of landscape painting, having educated more than 70 students in his studio, while others took his advice in private classes. He painted exclusively small-scale landscapes. He approached the painting as an open form—a fragment of a larger whole. At the beginning of his career, he referred mainly to the achievements of realism. The mature phase of his oeuvre is characterised by a synthesisation of forms - at that time he used a wide colour space, under the influence of impressionism he studied the changes in light and colour effects at different times of the day, year, atmospheric conditions, and strove to capture the mood of nature. Over time he became more dynamic in his landscapes, moving towards Expressionism, and from 1900 onwards Symbolism began to dominate his work, which made it possible to express universal concepts through the depiction of nature and its elements.

concept: Inga Kopciewicz
coordinator: Monika Kosteczko-Grajek