Stanisław Witkiewicz “Rider with the dog”

Ink, pencil on paper, signed lower right “S. Witkiewicz”.

Framed: 50x43,5 cm (28x23 cm)

Stanisław Witkiewicz (Poszawsze 1851 - 1915 Lovran) was a Polish painter, art theoretician, and amateur architect, known for his creation of "Zakopane Style". He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg (1868–1871) and furthered his studies in Munich (1872–1875). During his stay in Munich, he befriended painters Aleksander Gierymski, Józef Chełmoński and Henryk Siemiradzki. In 1875, he moved to Warsaw and set up a painting workshop in the laundry at the Hotel Europejski. In 1884–1887, Witkiewicz worked as the artistic director of "Wędrowiec" weekly, for which he wrote a series of articles concerning the values of a work of art and the role of art critics (published in book form under the title "Painting and criticism among us", Sztuka i krytyka u nas, in 1891 and 1899). In 1887, he held the same position in "Kłosy" magazine. In 1886, he visited Zakopane for the first time. He developed a fascination with the mountains, the Podhale highlanders and their vernacular traditions. His ambition became to create a Polish national style through extraction of all-Polish forms from the architectural and decorative art of the highlanders. He formulated the Zakopane Style (styl zakopiański) (also known as Witkiewicz Style (styl witkiewiczowski)) in architecture, in which he designed homes and interiors for well-off, artistically inclined Poles. He was strongly associated with Zakopane and promoted it in the art community. His son, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, became a famous painter, playwright, novelist and philosopher, also known (from the conflation of his surname and middle name) by the pseudonym "Witkacy."