Self-portrait in hat

Jan Spychalski never received an academic artistic education, but from his youth he was interested in the past. In 1914, he became a free student of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University, and after the first semester he moved to the University of Berlin. There, he attended classes in philosophy and the history and theory of literature, art and music for four years. He became interested in the avant-garde activities of Der Sturm and Die Aktion, and after moving to Poznań in 1918, he started to cooperate with the Ostoja Publishing House run by Jerzy and Witold Hulewicz. He also became acquainted with Stanisław Przybyszewski and many artists from the Krakow-Poznan expressionist milieu, active around the magazine Zdrój and the Bunt group. In 1920, he was employed at the University Library, where he worked (with a break during the occupation) for the rest of his life. Spychalski took his first painting and drawing lessons from Władysław Lam, while his closest confidants were the painter Wacław Taranczewski, the stained-glass artist Jan Piasecki and the artist-conservator Paweł Pogowski. However, having access to books and having knowledge of several foreign languages, the librarian started his own studies on the techniques of old masters. Small pieces of cardboard became a canvas for numerous portraits, still lives and landscapes with light, silvery colours and simplified, free form close to the Italian artists of pittura metafisica. During the Second World War the painter's palette darkened considerably, still retaining the enamel brilliance derived from the amber varnishes of Pieter Paul Rubens. Of the four children, three Spychalski daughters followed their father's professional path: Joanna became a painter, while Agnieszka (Ławniczakowa) and Róża (Kąsinowska) became art historians. The latter served as Voivodeship Historic Preservation Officer in Szczecin in 1960.

Szymon Piotr Kubiak