Dimensions: 47.5 x 61.5 cm
Signed and dated p.d.: 'Ignacy Witkiewicz | 28/IX 1916+'.
on the reverse paper exhibition stickers from the National Museum in Cracow, the National Museum in Poznan and the National Museum in Warsaw
Origins
collection of Tadeusz Boy Żeleński (1874-1941), Warsaw
from the collection of Stanisław Żeleński (1905-1981) and Janina Sokołowska-Żeleńska (1900-1992), Warsaw
private collection, Warsaw
Exhibited
Exhibition of paintings and drawings by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885-1939), Warsaw, Zachęta Gallery, Central Bureau of Artistic Exhibitions, October 9-25, 1967
Painting of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, National Museum in Poznań, January 14-February 17, 1967.
Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. Visual works, National Museum in Cracow, 1966
Literature
Zbigniew Sroczynski, Zeleński. Pedigree. History of the Żeleński family of Żelanka, Warsaw 1997, p. 209 (excerpt about Witkacy's works from the Boy Żeleński collection that survived the war)
Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz 1885 - 1939, catalog of paintings compiled by. Irena Jakimowicz, Anna Żakiewicz, Warsaw 1990, p. 76, cat. no. 266
Formists, edited by Irena Jakimowicz, exhibition catalog, National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw 1989, cat. no. 1066
archival photograph, work seen at the 1967 exhibition at Zachęta, Media and Publications, zacheta.art.pl (online)
Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885-1939). Painting and Drawing, exhibition catalog, Zachęta, Central Bureau of Artistic Exhibitions, Warsaw 1967, cat. no. 11, p. 12.
Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. Visual art, exhibition catalog, National Museum in Cracow, Cracow 1966, cat. no. 16.
Biography
His father was a well-known critic, painter and writer, creator of the so-called "Zakopane style" in architecture Stanislaw Witkiewicz. In 1905-10, he studied unsystematically at the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts with Jozef Mehoffer and with Wladyslaw Slewinski in Poronin. He traveled to Italy, France and Germany. In 1914 he participated in Bronislaw Malinowski's ethnographic expedition to Australia, from where he returned to Europe on hearing of the outbreak of World War I. His early painting work was under the sign of Young Poland and the influence of P. Gauguin and Wl. Slewinski. Later he came to a kind of expressionism. In time, as a result of theoretical reflections on form, he gave up painting. He founded a one-man "Portrait Company" and limited himself to making pastel portraits for a living, often created under the influence of stimulants that allowed him to experiment with form. Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz wrote 4 novels, more than 40 dramas, numerous articles and essays on painting, literature, theater and philosophy. During the interwar period, he lived mainly in Zakopane. After the outbreak of World War II, he fled from the Germans to the eastern borderlands, where he committed suicide in the village of Jeziory in Polesia on September 18, 1939.
