Marian KULESZA (1878-1943), Miscellaneous Flowers II
oil, canvas pasted on plywood
14.5 x 13 cm
signed l.d. MK
Inscribed on the back: Painted by Marian Kulesza
Polish painter born in Suwałki. He initially studied at Wojciech Gerson's drawing school in Warsaw, and supplemented his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. In 1900 he began studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, graduating in 1909. After traveling to European cities (Sofia, Paris, Florence, Naples), he returned to Warsaw in 1910, joining the artistic current of the capital. From 1920 until the end of his life he lived and worked in Vilnius. In Lithuanian literature he appears as Marijonas Kuleša. He became a member of the thriving Vilnius Society of Artists, established in 1921. Between 1922 and 1934 it organized twenty-one exhibitions, which had the character of annual shows of the achievements of the Society's members. Kulesza was a regular participant in these exhibitions (a great silver medal in 1924), which were also presented outside of Vilnius: in Warsaw, Poznan, Lviv and Krakow. Kulesza often presented his works at shows organized by the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw, of which he was a full member (in 1928 he received an honorable mention for Interior of a Church in Zakopane). After the split (1931) in the Vilnius Society of Artists, he became the founder and first president of the Vilnius Society of Independent Painters (later Artists of Fine Arts), with whom he exhibited in Vilnius (1931-1935) and Warsaw (1933-1934).
