after 1930, oil on canvas, 66 x 115 cm
signed on the underside: I Zygmuntowicz
Czeslaw Wasilewski (ca. 1875 - Warsaw/Lodz 1946?47) was a popular Warsaw painter during the interwar period, the author of paintings inspired by the canvases of Kossak, Brandt, Chelmonski, Wierusz-Kowalski or Fałat. He was self-taught; although he enrolled in the Warsaw School of Fine Arts in 1911, nothing further is known about his studies. He may have attended there (1913-1917) the studio of Wojciech Kossak, for whom he later prepared sub-paintings for paintings in the early 1920s. He participated in an exhibition in Lublin (1922), exhibited at the Salons of the Warsaw Zachęta (1925,1926, 1927), in Katowice (1926), Częstochowa (1927), Gdynia (1929), Kalisz (1931), Poznań (1928, 1931). He painted mainly numerous carriages, sledges, hunting trips, accidents on the road, lancers on patrol, elk, roe deer and wild boar in the woods. He also created atmospheric landscapes, clearly inspired by the paintings of J. Chelmonski, and less frequently painted flowers and still lifes. Identified with a painter named "Zygmuntowicz," whose works appeared on the art market from the 1930s onward. The initial I. or F., placed before this name, may suggest the name Ignatius or Francis. The painter's silhouette was discussed in more detail by S. Bołdok in the article Painter with Two Names (Art and Business 1992, no. 7-8, pp. 48-49).
