Oil on cardboard, signed lower right: "L. Kowalski"
Dimensions with frame: 35x43 cm (21x30 cm)
Leon Kowalski (Kyiv 1870–1937 Kraków) began his studies at Mykola Muraszko’s painting school in Kyiv. He continued his studies from 1891 to 1893 at the Kraków School of Fine Arts under Władysław Łuszczkiewicz, Leopold Loeffler, and Leon Wyczółkowski. After receiving a scholarship from the National Department, he left for further studies in Munich, where he attended Karl Raupp’s studio (1894), and then to Paris, where he studied under Jean Paul Laurens, Jean Paul Benjamin Constant, and Ernest Girardot. During this time, he traveled throughout France, Italy, and Germany. From 1905 onward, he lived in Kraków, where he became actively involved in the artistic life of the city—he was a co-founder of the Zero Group (1908) and the General Union of Visual Artists (1911). He spent the years 1912–20 in Kyiv; during that time, he worked at the local School of Fine Arts and was also a co-organizer of the Polish School of Fine Arts (1917). Upon his return to Kraków, he founded the “Sztuka Rodzima” Society of Painters and Sculptors (1921) and the Kraków Circle of Graphic Artists (1929). He painted realistic portraits, genre and religious scenes, as well as landscapes, garden scenes, flowers, and blossoming trees.
