Kazimierz Teofil Pochwalski (1855 Kraków - 1940 Kraków), Portrait of Zofia née Szarski Pochwalska ("Portrait of the artist's wife"), 1888

oil/canvas
Size: 190 x 95 cm
Signed and dated l.d.: 'Kaź. Pochwalski | 1888'
on the painting loom two paper exhibition stickers of the Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Cracow, on the frame two ownership stickers, a paper inventory sticker, a sticker with the number: '11', and a sticker with the description: 'POCHWALSKI | PORTRAIT'.

Origins
institutional collection, Warsaw

Exhibited
Kazimierz Pochwalski. Posthumous exhibition, Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Cracow, 1956
Retrospective exhibition of Polish portraiture in the period 1854-1954. centenary jubilee of the Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Cracow, March-April 1954

Literature
Retrospective Exhibition of the Polish Portrait 1854-1954. One Hundred Year Jubilee of the Society of Friends of the Fine Arts in Cracow, exhibition catalog, Society of Friends of the Fine Arts in Cracow, Cracow 1954, cat. no. 87. p. 14

Biography
He came from a Cracow family of painters. He was the son of Józef Pochwalski. He studied in 1871-78 at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow, where he came into contact with, among others, Jan Matejko. He became friends with Antoni Piotrowski, Jacek Malczewski and Leon Wyczółkowski. He also studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he stayed in the studio of Alexander Wagner until around 1882. He graduated with a bronze medal award. He maintained close contacts with the Polish art colony. During this time he traveled extensively. He returned to Krakow in 1881. There he opened a painting studio with Antoni Piotrowski on Wolska Street (now Piłsudskiego Street). For a short time he went to Paris, where he stayed with Piotrowski from the winter of 1883, until the summer of 1883. In 1883-92 he again lived and worked in Cracow. He took an active part in the cultural life of the city and was active in numerous associations. He painted numerous representational portraits, which brought him fame and recognition. In the second half of the 1880s he took a long trip through Greece, Turkey and Italy, during which he was accompanied by Henryk Sienkiewicz. In the following years, he embarked on numerous exotic treks, and made his first contacts with the imperial court in Vienna.

In 1891, he exhibited his works at an exposition of the Vienna Künstlerhaus, where he received very favorable critical reviews. This event earned him an invitation to the imperial court, where the painter was introduced to Franz Joseph I himself. A year later he settled on the Danube River and remained there until 1919. He was a member of many art groups in the Vienna area and a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts there. He received numerous commissions for representational portraits, including images of representatives of the Habsburg family. Pochwalski returned permanently to Cracow in the summer of 1919. Until the end of his life, he painted official portraits of state dignitaries and aristocracy.