Henryk PIĄTKOWSKI, Pines

Oil, plywood, 28 x 26.5 cm, signed p.d.: H Piątkowski.

Polish painter, printmaker, writer and art critic. He began his drawing studies in St. Petersburg, but soon moved to Warsaw and continued them from 1868 with Rafał Hadziewicz. During his year-long education he met Jozef Chelmonski and Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski. In 1872, he left for Munich, where he studied with Alexander Wagner at the Technische Mahlschule (Malklasse at the Academy of Fine Arts)[1] from November 1, and then at Carl Theodor von Piloty's private school of composition. While in the Reich, he maintained close relations with artists from Konstantin Brandl's circle. In 1875, together with Jozef Chelmonski, he went to Paris, where his work acquired an individual character. From the French capital he went to London for several months, from where he briefly returned to Munich, and then went to Odesa. He returned to Warsaw in 1879 and co-founded the Pro Arte art group. Henryk Piatkowski's oeuvre includes portraits, landscapes and paintings of sacred and historical subjects, as well as genre scenes often with antique elements. During the creative period of his life, he exhibited at the Autumn Salons and at exhibitions in Warsaw, St. Petersburg and Moscow. In addition to painting, the artist was also involved in art criticism, publishing reviews in magazines including Wanderer and Tygodnik Ilustrowany. He also wrote books treating the work of other painters current to his time.