Sea landscape

Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz was Wojciech Gerson’s disciple who left for Paris in 1882 to study at the Académie Julian. She was the first Polish woman to receive such a professional education. In 1892, she married Antoni Bohdanowicz and, together with her husband, decided to return to Warsaw to open a school of painting for women. These plans were not realised as she began to suffer from heart disease. She died soon after her return.During her stay in France, she often spent time at the seaside. In the 1980s, she stayed, among other places, in Pourville, which was also a frequent destination for the Impressionists. In her later years, the artist travelled most frequently to Brittany (Bénodet and Beg-Meil and La Rochelle and Boyardville on the island of Oleron). From this period comes Pejzaż morski [The Seascape], belonging to the Szczecin collection. The view of Beg-Meil was painted a year before her return to her homeland. It was a period when the painter enjoyed great recognition; in 1890, she received a gold medal at the exhibition at The Royal Academy in London and a gold medal at the international art exhibition in Berlin in 1891. The picture, acquired for the collection of the National Museum in Szczecin in 1964, was painted in light blue tones with fragments of white, green and brown. The National Museum in Warsaw holds a sketch of a landscape entitled Brzeg morza [The Seashore] from 1889, showing a view maintained in a similar style.

Beata Małgorzata Wolska