Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, MALE PORTRET, October 19, 1931

62.5 x 49.0cm - pastel, paper MALE PORTRET - HEAD FROM PROFILE WITH HOSE Tail, emerging from leaves, 19 X 1931

pastel, gray ribbed paper horizontally stenciled, 62.5 x 49 cm (light frame)

signed l.g. obliquely: Witkacy | 1931 19/X | (T.Bs) | NP8m + pyfko



The painting is accompanied by an expert report by Dr. Anna Żakiewicz dated August 2023.



The artist manifested portrait skills from his youth. Until 1914, he painted with oil paints and drew with charcoal. In 1915 he discovered the technique of dry pastel, which was new to him, and used it for the rest of his life. The male portrait, taken on October 19, 1931, belongs to Type B, which the Portrait Company's Regulations assumed a distinctive type, but without the shadow of caricature [...] with an undercut of distinctive features [...] The relationship to the model objective. In practice, this meant a faithful image of the model, something like a photograph for an identity document. The artist's fee was 250 zlotys, which was the equivalent of a decent monthly salary at the time (for example, a teacher's salary). Witkacy made the largest number of such portraits, but a small number of them are quite far from the accepted assumptions.

Such is precisely the portrait in question. First of all, it depicts a man's head framed in profile, and not frontally or en trois quatre (3/4), as the vast majority of Portrait Company images, especially of the B type. In addition, the man's neck does not rise from his bust, as in other portraits, but emerges from a plant with leaves set on long, thin stems. Below, the tail of the snake is visible, suggesting that it is the end of the model's neck, which, in addition, already near the head has marked transverse striations, the same as on the tip of the reptile placed against the background of an oval form (probably the top of a table often appearing as a staffage of portraits made by Witkacy). In addition, the man's ear is hidden by a bizarre form in the shape of a large leaf. The whole work is suspended in an abstract pinkish-blue empty space with the horizon line at 1/3 of the height of the composition. In this way the artist further enhanced the surreal style of his work.

This unusual form of the portrait can be justified by its origin in the collection of Jan Leszczynski, philosopher, professor at the Jagiellonian University, with whom Witkacy was friends, held philosophical disputes and portrayed not only him and his beautiful wife, but also a whole circle of friends, relatives and mutual acquaintances. These portraits generally have an unusual form and are signed with the artistic pseudonym Witkacy, rather than officially Ignacy Witkiewicz, as are most of the B-type images, often made for casual clients of the Portrait Company, who were strangers to the artist.

The snake's tail, by the way, is one of the rare unusual endings of the heads of people portrayed by the artist. Others include a fish's tail, bird's feet or even a philosophically wrapped male member.

Annotations next to the signature indicate that on the day of the portrait Witkacy had not smoked cigarettes for eight months, but had drunk a small beer (pyfko).

There is no doubt that this is a unique work - both because of its unusual form, referring to surrealism, and its noble origin from Prof. Leszczynski's collection. In 1963-92 the portrait was his deposit at the National Museum in Cracow (inv. no. N.D. 5571) and was exhibited there once - in 1980.

From the expert opinion of Dr. Anna Żakiewic

Bibliography:

- Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz 1885-1939: Painting - Photography - Drawing - Portrait Company. On the fortieth anniversary of the artist's death, National Museum in Cracow, February 1980, item 264;

- Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz 1885-1939. catalog of paintings, compiled by. Irena Jakimowicz with the cooperation of Anna Żakiewicz, National Museum, Warsaw 1990, item I 1551.

Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (Warsaw 1885 - Jeziory in Volhynia 1939) studied at home under his father, Stanislaw Witkiewicz. In 1903 he passed his high school diploma in Lviv. In 1904 he began traveling, including to Vienna, Italy, Munich, Paris and London. From 1904 to 1910 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow with Prof. Jozef Mehoffer, interrupted by periods of study with Władysław Ślewiński. In 1914 he left with Bronislaw Malinowski's expedition to Australia, and from there went directly to St. Petersburg, where he enlisted in the Russian army after the outbreak of WWI. In Russia, he witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution.

After returning to the country in 1918, he became a member of the "Formists" group, with which he exhibited from 1918 to 1922. In the painting of this period, he came closest to putting into practice his own theory of Pure Form, formulated during the war (it also applied to drama). Along with Leon Chwistek, he was the main theoretician of the grouping. After 1924, he operated as a one-man "Portrait Company of S. I. Witkiewicz'' making commissioned portraits. At the same time, he continued his literary (dramas, novels) and philosophical work, but above all he practiced the "art of living" that united all forms of his activity, appreciated only at the end of the 20th century. He committed suicide at the beginning of World War II, the day after the Soviet aggression against Poland.