Henryk HERTZ BARWIŃSKI (1877-1970), Lieutenant Jan Skotnicki - painter, 1916

Color lithograph; 24 x 20 cm (clear passe-partout);
Signed on panel p. d.: HB and place and date l. d.: 1916
Henryk Barwiński, born Henryk Teodor Hertz, alias Kirkor, Zwidlicz (born April 23, 1877 in Warsaw, died December 8, 1970 there)-Polish actor, director, illustrator.
In 1904 he received a call up to the army for the Russian-Japanese front, to avoid this he moved to Cracow and continued acting there. At the same time he studied sculpture (from 1906, Cracow Academy of Fine Arts, under Konstanty Laszczka). In 1913 he became a member of the board of directors of the Union of Artists and Women Artists of Polish Theaters in Galicia.
On August 4, 1914 in Lviv, he volunteered for the Polish Legions. He organized a legion theater, designed a medal honoring the name-day of Jozef Pilsudski; in 1917 he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the emperor and in the autumn returned to Lviv, where he joined the ensemble of the local Municipal Theater. In 1920 he fought in the defense of Lviv, and went into the reserves with the rank of captain. For his heroic participation in the fighting he was twice awarded the Cross of Valor.
Jan Skotnicki (born August 29, 1876 in Bobrowniki, died January 14, 1968 in Podkowa Leśna) - Polish painter, visual artist, political activist, inspector of art and vocational education of Department II of painting, sculpture and decorative arts at the Ministry of Arts and Culture in 1919. He studied: 1898-1898 at the St. Petersburg Academy (under Jan Ciąglinski and Léon Bakst), then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow (under Jacek Malczewski, Teodor Axentowicz, Leon Wyczółkowski and Jozef Mehoffer), 1904-1905 in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere.