Andrzej GRABOWSKI, Portrait of a Woman in a Frockcoat

Oil, canvas, 61 x 47 cm, signed p.d.: J. Grabowski.

Painter, brother of the illustrator Wojciech. Studied at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow under W. K. Stadler, among others with Jan Matejko and Artur Grottger. In 1860-1863 he stayed in Vienna, where he studied for one semester at the Academy under K. Wurzinger. A participant in the January Uprising, after its collapse he went abroad and was in Prague and Munich. Since 1866 he lived permanently in Lviv, from where he went to Italy several more times. He participated in numerous exhibitions, including a silver medal at an exhibition in Vienna in 1873 and a gold medal at an exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. In his earlier period, he painted landscapes and genre scenes, but later - from his Viennese days - he took up primarily portraiture, and in this field he reached outstanding achievements. His portraits - especially self-portraits and male images - are distinguished by their expressiveness and in-depth characterization of the model.