"The Garden in Houston"

The painting depicts a section of a park on a sunny day. A white marble sculpture, which forms the focal point of the composition, stands on a low column set atop three steps. The nude figure of a young man or a boy is positioned in contrapposto with his right arm raised, as if holding something. He is facing directly towards the viewer. It is difficult to determine whom the statue represents, as the painter depicted it sketchily. On the right side of the canvas sits a woman immersed in reading. She faces the statue, with one leg crossed over the other, slightly leaning forward as she reads a book resting on her knee. The chair is draped with a brown chequered rug. The red of the chair's backrest and the woman's shoes are the most vivid colours in this light-filled painting. The sun brightly illuminates the woman's face and shoulders, highlighting the whiteness of the marble statue and the pages of the open book. It emphasises the light green of the lawn and the leaves of the trees. This is what an early autumn morning looks like. One can notice the first fallen and yellowed leaves lying at the base of the pedestal and scattered on the grass. The branches of the illuminated tree crown on the left lean in an arc over the head of the statue, as if enclosing the triangle of the composition. Further into the garden, behind the statue, a shadowy thicket of nature and the greenery of other trees are visible. "The Garden in Houston" was painted in 1954, and it is likely that the painter portrayed his newly married wife in it. 

Bolesław Jan Czedekowski (1885–1969) was a Polish painter born in Voinyliv, in Eastern Galicia. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and later became a student of Professor Kazimierz Pochwalski and Heinrich von Angeli, two renowned portrait painters. He opened his first studio in Vienna and was perhaps most associated with this city during his early artistic career. He also lived in Vienna during World War I, gradually gaining recognition for his portraits of aristocratic women and the wives of high-ranking officers. He exhibited his art in Vienna, Paris, Warsaw, and Kraków, though it was not initially well-received in Poland. After World War II, he immigrated to the United States. In the 1960s, he returned to Vienna, where he passed away on 8 July 1969. He was buried in Lofer, near Salzburg. 

Dorota Błoniarz