Bolesław SZAŃKOWSKI, Still Life with a Croissant

Oil, plywood, 26 x 37 cm, signed: p.d.: B. Szańkowski 1892.

Popular portrait painter, studied at the Cracow School of Fine Arts (1891-1894), at the Munich Academy under Johann C. Herterich (1894) and at the Académie Colarrosi and Académie Julian in Paris (1896-1898). In 1912 he settled permanently in Munich, from where he made numerous trips to France, Belgium, England and Scotland, the United States. A highly regarded portraitist, he painted many representative portraits of people from the aristocracy and European ruling families. He portrayed, among others, Ignacy Paderewski, Princess Daisy von Pless, the Radziwill family, the Potocki family, the imperial family in Berlin and the royal family in Romania. He was eager to paint idealized portraits of beautiful and refined ladies, as well as more intimate, graceful children's portraits, also repeatedly portraying his daughters Ada and Helena. At the Paris Salon in 1900, he received a mention honorable for his painting Portrait of an Officer. He participated in many exhibitions in Germany and Austria; he often sent paintings to national exhibitions; in 1928 and 1939 he had major solo exhibitions at Warsaw's Zachęta Gallery.