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Artist's Daughters

Aleksander Augustynowicz

Basic information

ID: Ж-960
Author: Aleksander Augustynowicz
Name: Artist's Daughters
Date of creation: 1907
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire
Technique: oil painting
Material: canvas oil
Dimensions: 150 x 120 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: portraiture genre art
Plot: Portrait
Provenance: Collection of Lviv City Gallery
Exposition: Lozinski Palace

Information about author

Author: Aleksander Augustynowicz
Author in the original: Aleksander Augustynowicz
Artist's lifetime: 1865–1944
Country: Poland, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Biography: Aleksander Augustynowicz (1865, Iskrzynia, Poland – 1944, Warsaw, Poland) was a Polish painter of Armenian descent, a member of the Krakow Association of Plastic Artists and the Warsaw Club of Polish Watercolourists, and a member of the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts from 1925. He authored numerous portraits, landscapes, and genre scenes on Hutsul themes. The artist painted in watercolour, pastel, and oil. Aleksander Augustynowicz completed his secondary education in Rzeszow. Between 1883 and 1886, he studied at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts under Wladyslaw Luszczkiewicz and Jan Matejko and, in 1888, at Simon Hollosy's private art school in Munich. He travelled through Italy and Hungary. Between 1890 and 1914, he lived and worked in Lviv. In the city, he ran his private art school for women, where notable students included the famous Lviv graphic artist Wanda Korzeniowska, painter Maria Schayer-Gorska, and others. In 1900, he participated in the decorative painting of the Grand City Theatre (now Solomiya Krushelnytska Lviv State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet), creating individual murals for the lobby, auditorium, and mirror hall. From 1914 to 1921, he lived in Zakopane. In 1937, in honour of the 50th anniversary of his artistic career, he was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit. With the outbreak of World War II, he moved to Warsaw, where he died on August 23, 1944, during the Warsaw Uprising. Works by Aleksander Augustynowicz are preserved in many museums across Poland (Warsaw, Poznan, Krakow, Wroclaw, etc.), as well as in Lviv – at Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery and the Lviv Museum of the History of Religion.

Object description

The painting depicts the artist's two eldest daughters – Stanislawa (12) and Zofia (8) – in the room's interior. The girls are seated at a round wooden table of the gueridon type. On the table is a glass with flowers; the drawing tools are scattered around. The sisters are different in age, but they are dressed alike according to the fashion of the time. They are wearing white and blue striped dresses with long sleeves and white detachable lace collars adorned with dark blue bows. They were painting but were momentarily interrupted to pose. The girls gaze confidently yet impatiently at their father, who has skillfully captured their personalities and moods on canvas.

Inscriptions

In the bottom right corner, the artist's signature and date: "Augustynowicz 1907".

Portrayed person

The name of the person portrayed: Stanislawa and Zofia Augustynowicz were the elder daughters of the artist Aleksander Augustynowicz and Anna Czemerinska. Stanislawa Augustynowicz (1895–1978) was the wife of surgeon Antoni Jurasz. Zofia Augustynowicz (1899–1935) was an activist of the Armenian Union in Poland.
Lifetime of the person portrayed: Stanislawa Augustynowicz (1895–1978). Zofia Augustynowicz (1899–1935).

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Artist's Daughters

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