Zygmunt Andrychiewicz, An Evening Over the Forest, ca. 1901

53.4 x 75.5cm - oil, canvas signed l.d.: Z. Andrychiewicz | 19[.]1

Zygmunt Andrychiewicz began his studies in painting at the Drawing Class in Warsaw, and in 1884-86, thanks to a scholarship from the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts, he continued them under W.Łuszczkiewicz and I.Jabłoński at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow. This scholarship also enabled him to stay in Paris in 1887-92 and continue his studies - at the Académie Colarossi under G.Colin and at the Académie Julian under A.W.Bougereau and T.Robert-Fleury. After returning to Warsaw, he was involved in teaching - he taught at the female painting school of H.Tokarzewska, and ran drawing courses for women in his own studio. He was a member of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts and a co-founder of the Company of United Painters, Sculptors and Architects. At the time, he participated in many exhibitions, including the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1889 and 1900. In 1899-1918, he traveled several times to Italy and France; he stayed for a long time in Paris, where in 1906 he attended the studio of B.Constant. In his later years he lived in the village of Malkow on the Warta River, continued to work a lot, but actually withdrew from active artistic life. Nevertheless, in 1922 he still had a solo exhibition at the Warsaw Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts, and in 1929 he participated in the General National Exhibition in Poznań. His painting is maintained in the convention of academic realism. He was primarily a portraitist; he also created genre scenes of village life, painted landscapes and still lifes. In his earlier paintings, the realistic form is often accompanied by symbolic, literary content (On the Thorny Road of Life or The Last Friend).