Sunday, November 21, 2010

Władysław Szerner - Polish horse and genre painter



Salve,
 today a little too forgotten painter of the Munich School of Polish painting:
Władysław Szerner  agraart.pl szerner  , born in 1839, studied art at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts  beginning in 1862.  Unfortunately for his studies one year later,  when Motherland called, he, a very promising artist, joined the Polish army during the 1863 January Uprising http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Uprising . As we know the January uprising ended in defeat and pan (Mr.) Szerner was forced to emigrate after the defeat to France and eventually settled in Bavaria.
After studies at the Munich Art Academy - with various German masters, Alexander  Wagner, Hermann Anschütz and Alexander Strähuber,  he became an independent artist, and his atellier was next to the famous one of  Jozef Brandt, and these two Polish artist became fast friends, especially because they shared similar interest in Polish history and genre paintings. Their freindship lasted for life and Pan Szerner often traveled with Brandt to his estate in Oronsko, near Radom, and partook in Brandt's excursions to the Old Polish Borderland aka Kresy (Ukraine). Being a member of Munich Kunstverein  kunstverein-muenchen.de , he exhibited there from 1874 until 1909, as well as in Lwow(Lviv), Cracow and Warsaw. He was admired by many literary personages of the XIX century Poland, eg J.I. Kraszewski en.wikipedia.org Kraszewski prized him for being able to capture scenes of Poland's countryside au naturel, with believable detail and with joyful flavour so characteristic of these picturesque sites .
He not only painted horses and the images of Old Poland, but also was a skilled graphic artist and draughtsman,  and was able to copy in pencil many famous paintings by his friend Brandt so they could be engraved and printed in various contemporary periodicals, eg 'Kłosy' and 'Tygodnik Ilustrowany' of Warsaw, to the delight of many a reader.
 Later on he started painting the 'exotique' and wonderfully colorful inhabitants of the eastern Carpathian Mountians - the Huculs (Hutzuls).
His art is in many private collections, and his works fetch reasonable prices at auctions. He had a son, also a painter, and their quite similar works can be subject to forgeries, as father's works are more expensive nowadays.

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