Study for portrait of wife

A young and dainty woman in a dark dress is looking at the viewers with gloomy eyes from the painting: this is Michalina Piotruszewska (1883-1962), a student of Konrad Krzyżanowski in the Warsaw School of Fine Arts and the painter’s future wife as well as the author of two marine landscapes that are in the collections of the National Museum in Szczecin. The portrait, full of expression and in sophisticated colours, charms the viewers with its technique: it was painted with bold brush strokes leaving wide streaks of liquid paint on the surface. The work of Krzyżanowski, one of the most interesting representatives of the Expressionist trend in the art of Young Poland, attracts attention by its technical proficiency which is the outcome of talent, careful education acquired in Kiev, Petersburg, Munich and Nagybánya (Baia Mare), as well as familiarity with the art of the former masters. The Szczecin painting is one of five known portraits of the painter's fiancée, created around 1905 ˗ the others form a part of the collection of Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Roma and are in private hands.

Dariusz Kacprzak