Zofia Stryjeńska, ŚREDNIOWIECZNY ŻAK, ca. 1917

34.0 x 25.7cm - watercolor, pencil, paper watercolor, pencil, paper pasted on cardboard, 34 x 25.7 cm

signed on lead: Z. Stryjeńska (medieval lag)

on the reverse, signed in lead: 3019 [in a circle].



Between 1917 and 1919, Zofia Stryjeńska worked on three sets of polychromies: in the building of the Industrial Museum (now the Academy of Fine Arts, Smolensk Street) in Cracow, in the Senator's Tower on Wawel Hill (both 1917) and in the house of architect Zdzislaw Kalinowski in Warsaw (1919). Among the aforementioned works and projects for them, nor in the surviving documentation, there is no composition corresponding strictly to the offered work, but it may be related to one of the mentioned realizations. Cf. Światosław Lenartowicz, Zofia Stryjeńska 1891-1976. exhibition at the National Museum in Cracow, October 2008-January 2009, Cracow 2008, pp. 48-65, 230-234, 300-302: cat. I. 1-3.



♣ a fee will be added to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, based on the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Act of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite).

Zofia Stryjeńska, née Lubanska (Krakow 1891 - Geneva 1976) - painter, illustrator, stage designer - was one of the more colorful figures of the Polish artistic community in the interwar period. After a short period of study with Leonard Stroynowski and at Maria Niedzielska's school in Cracow, she left for Munich, where in 1911-1912 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in male disguise (women were not admitted at the time). She made her debut at the Kraków TPSP in 1912 with a series of cartoons of Polish fairy tales inspired by folk tales. In 1916 she married Karol Stryjeński. She lived in Cracow until 1919, later living in Paris, Cracow, Zakopane and Warsaw. In 1925, she achieved international success at the Decorative Arts Exhibition in Paris, receiving the Gran Prix in four divisions (painting, poster, textile, illustration) and the Diplom d'Honneur for her toy designs. She was involved in decorative architectural painting, polychrome, illustration, stage design (including Karol Szymanowski's Harnasie; 1938), industrial design (kilim designs, toys). She created her own specific style in decoratively stylized, colorful, dynamic and temperamental paintings; tempera, watercolors and gouaches. In their subject matter she referred to legends, beliefs, history and folk customs. She published several graphic volumes (Slavic Idols, 1917 and 1922) and albums of reproductions (Polish Dances, 1927; Pascha, 1929; Piasts, 1929; Slavic Gusła / Magie Slave, 1934). Her works were also popularized by numerous color postcards.