Tytus Czyżewski (1880 Przyszowa near Limanowa - 1945 Kraków), Portrait of a young woman, ca1934-35

Condition
appraisal by Anna Prugar-Myślik

Provenance
work donated from the artist's legacy to the family of the current owners

Biography
Studied art in 1902-1907 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow under the direction of J. Unierzyski, J. Mehoffer and L. Wyczółkowski. In the period 1907 - 09 he stayed in Paris, where he was strongly influenced by the art of Cézanne. In 1910, the Cracow TPSP organized the first individual exhibition of Czyzewski's works. In the period 1911-1913, he participated in Krakow's "independent" exhibitions together with Andrzej and Zbigniew Pronaszek, Jacek Mierzejewski and Eugeniusz Zak. These exhibitions manifested the younger generation's dissociation from the cultural legacy of Young Poland. In 1917 he joined the Polish Expressionists (from 1919 Formists) group, opening the history of the Polish avant-garde. He participated in all Formist exhibitions in Krakow, Warsaw, Lviv and Poznan. He published collections of poems and dramatic works, designing their typographic layout. Together with Leon Chwistek and Karol Winkler, he edited the magazine "Formists". In 1922, after the dissolution of the Formists group), he went to Paris, where he stayed intermittently until 1930. He presented his works at the Salons: Autumn (1926, 1928), Independent (1923, 1924, 1925, 1926) and Tuileries (1926, 1929). During this period he traveled extensively, visiting the southern regions of France, Spain and Italy. Upon his return to Poland, he engaged in art criticism and took an active part in the exhibition movement. He presented his work at the Salons of the Institute of Art Propaganda; he participated in the L'Art Vivant en Europe exhibition in Brussels (1931) and the International Art and Technology Exhibition in Paris (1937). In 1944 he moved to Krakow, where he lived until his death. 'The key motif in his painting now became still lifes. In them, the dense matter of painting acquired a shimmering quality, saturated with light; forms were defined by whimsical, wavy lines. The compositions of this period show deeply assimilated inspirations from the art of Cézanne and the French Fauvists. Flat, independently treated patches of color are linked by a clear contour; real objects are transformed into concise signs, and their mutual relations played out on the picture plane play an essential role' - Irena Kossowska.