Ludwik Stasiak (1858 Bochnia - 1924 Kraków), Self-portrait

Literature
Image reproduced as the cover of the book "Jeszcze człapię" by Bolesław Kozłowski, Katowice 2009 (back cover)

Biography
He studied painting in the studio of J. Matejko, among others. He also studied in Vienna and Munich. He visited Venice and Nuremberg. Around 1895, he settled in Bochnia. His Bochnia studio, decorated in Munich style, was often visited by his friends, artists from Cracow (Wincenty Wodzinowski, Włodzimierz Tetmajer, Kasper Żelechowski and others such as - Edmund Ciećkiewicz, Tadeusz Okoń, Władysław Skoczylas, Antoni Broszkiewicz, Antoni and Tadeusz Waśkowski). In 1901 he unexpectedly abandoned painting, first for journalism, then for criticism and art history; at the same time he became a popular author of novels, short stories, humorous stories, as well as a playwright. Ludwik Stasiak had already achieved prestigious honors at the Society of Friends of Fine Arts during his time as a student in Cracow. He owed further success in painting to the patronage of Count Ignacy Milewski, a well-known collector. He created genre, historical, symbolic, allegorical, landscape, religious compositions, as well as portraits and self-portraits.He gained real fame with flowers, which he painted in whole series and - views of the old part of the Bochnia mine. The initial phase of his work showed a strong dependence on Munich influences, the later phase was associated with realism, also modernism and Art Nouveau styling. Talented, extremely hard-working, persistent in his struggle with adversity - he lived and created - strenuously seeking his own artistic expression - in very difficult times, in a transitional period between the painting of the realistic and historical trend and the work of followers of new directions.