Wacław Piotrowski, Still Life, 1935

Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower left: "Wacław Piotrowski 1935".

Framed: 73x59 cm (60x46 cm).

Wacław Piotrowski (Warsaw 1887 - 1967 Warsaw) – Polish painter, portraitist, landscape painter and illustrator. In the years 1907-1911, he studied at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts at Hoża Street, initially a sculpture under the supervision of Xawery Dunikowski, and then painting under the direction of Kazimierz Stabrowski, Konrad Krzyżanowski, Edward Trojanowski and Stanisław Lentz. From the show debut in 1910, he was (until 1939) a regular participant in the exhibitions and salons of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw. In the years 1919-1922 he stayed in France, mainly in Paris, where he participated in salons and exhibitions organized by the Société des Artistes Français and the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts. In the same year, he took part in the exhibition The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers in London. In 1921, he had an individual exhibition in Paris at Galerie Devambez, with which he was bound by the contract. Later he painted landscapes in Naples (1924) and Venice (1924 - 1926). He was a portrait painter. In several periods of his life, he painted oil and watercolor landscapes and sketches with feathers from nature, but they were the margin of his favorite artistic activity, which was a psychological portrait. On canvas and cardboard, he preserved the corners and walls of the Warsaw Old Town, palaces, monuments and trees in Łazienki and Wilanów. First of all, he painted portraits, including portraits of poor residents of the capital - janitors, messengers, laundresses, beggars and residents of hostels. At the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, two of his sports portraits were known and often reproduced in the Polish press: Stefan Kostrzewski during the hurdles and Halina Konopacka during the shot put. Both portraits were exhibited in Amsterdam, at the city museum, at the Sport in Painting exhibition, accompanying the 9th Olympic Games in Amsterdam in 1928. He was valued in the inter-war period, after World War II rather underappreciated and forgotten. His paintings can be found in the collections of the National Museum in Warsaw, the National Museum in Krakow, the Museum of Sport and Tourism in Warsaw, the Ministry of Culture and Art, and drawings in the Print Room of the Library of the University of Warsaw.