- Teodor Axentowicz
Teodor Axentowicz (
May 13 ,1859 -August 26 ,1938 ) was an Polish painter and university professor of Armenian descent. A renowned artist of his times, he was also the rector of theAcademy of Fine Arts in Kraków . As an artist, Axentowicz was famous for his portraits and subtle scenes ofHutsul life, set in the Carpathians.Biography
Personal life
Axentowicz was born May 13, 1859 in Brassó, Hungary, to a Polish family of distant Armenian ancestry. In 1893 in Chelsea, London, he married Iza Henrietta Gielgud, aunt of Val Gielgud and John [Arthur] Gielgud of the theatrical dynasty. A son, Philip S.A.D. Axentowicz was born in Chelsea in 1893.
Between 1879 and 1882 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. From there he moved to Paris, where he continued his education until 1895. During that time he started a long-time cooperation with various journals and started his career as a copyist, duplicating the works of
Tizian andBotticelli . He also made numerous travels to London and Rome, where he prepared a set of portraits, one of the first in his career.Career
In 1894 he started collaboration with
Wojciech Kossak andJan Styka during the preparation of the "Racławice Panorama ", one of the largestpanoramic painting s in the history of Polish art. The following year he moved to Kraków, where he became a professor at the local Academy of Fine Arts. He was also active in the local society and cooperated with various societies devoted to propagation of arts and crafts. In 1897 he founded an artistic conservatory for women and soon afterwards became one of the founders of the "Sztuka" society, whose members were such artists asJózef Chełmoński ,Julian Fałat ,Jacek Malczewski ,Józef Mehoffer , Jan Stanisławski,Włodzimierz Tetmajer ,Leon Wyczółkowski andStanisław Wyspiański . In 1910 he became the rector of the Academy and since 1928 was also an honorary member of theZachęta Society. He died August 26, 1938 in Kraków.Throughout his life he had numerous exhibitions, both in Poland and abroad. The most notable were organized in: Berlin (1896, 1913), St. Louis (1904), Munich (1905, 1935), London (1906), Vienna (1908), Rome (1911), Venice (1914, 1926), Paris (1921), Chicago (1927) and Prague (1927).
External links
* [http://www.pinakoteka.zascianek.pl/Axentowicz/Index.htm Paintings]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
