Łopieńscy Brothers, signed A. Kurzawa; Br. Łopieńscy Warsaw, bronze, height 30 cm. Lopienski Brothers - Warsaw family company specializing in bronze, silver and precious metal products, existing since 1862. Awarded at national and international exhibitions in Lviv (1894), Poznan (1929), Paris (1925), among others. In 1950 the company was nationalized and transformed into the cooperative "Decorative Bronze". Antoni Kurzawa (1842-1898) came from a peasant family, thanks to Mieczyslaw Weryha-Darowski he began studying sculpture. He took up studies at the School of Fine Arts in Krakow (1863-1869). For a short time he lived in Lviv, where, together with Julian Markowski, he made tombstones in the Lychakiv Cemetery. In 1889, his sculpture entitled. "Mickiewicz wooing the genius of poetry" won third place in a competition of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw; the artist, broken by the jury's verdict, smashed the work, which contributed to the work's legend. Kurzawa himself became a symbol of the tragic fate of unappreciated artists, and his figure became an inspiration for many Young Poland artists and writers.
