Henryka Beyer (7 March 1782 – 24 October 1855) was a German painter active in Poland. She was the youngest sister of Wilhelm Henryk Minter, an architect.

Life and career

Born in

Szczecin Szczecin (, , german: Stettin ; sv, Stettin ; Latin: ''Sedinum'' or ''Stetinum'') is the capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the German border, it is a major s ...

, Beyer was initially taught by local painter Petera Schmidta. In 1805, she moved to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

with her brother Charles Frederick and studied under the Director of the KPM ( Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur), Gottfried Wilhelm Volker. In 1811, Beyer moved to

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, where she was trained by

Antoni Brodowski Antoni Stanisław Brodowski (26 December 1784, Warsaw – 31 March 1832, Warsaw) was a Polish painter in the Classical style. Biography According to the wishes expressed in his father's will, he began by studying mathematics.Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

faith to

Calvinism Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Cal ...

. They had three sons; the youngest, Charles Adolf, was born in 1818. Widowed the next year in 1819, Beyer had to maintain her sons and in 1824 in Warsaw opened a school of painting and drawing for women. She ran it until 1835. She painted

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

s, mostly watercolors, usually in dark warm colors. Beyer initialed her works HKA. She died in 1855 in Chrzanów near Warsaw and is buried in the cemetery next to the children of Calvinist in Warsaw (q E, row 3, No. 13). The poet Stanisław Jachowicz honored her memory with the following lines for her obituary:

''Prosta jak kwiatek, co go malowała/W niebiańskie strojny klejnoty,/Prawda w jej słowie, a w czynach jej – chwała,/W życiu zachęta do cnoty'' (''Simple as a flower, as it painted / W heavenly adorned with jewels, / The truth in her words and her actions - glory, / In the life of an incentive to virtue'').

References

* Wladyslaw Janiszewski, in Polish Biographical Dictionary. T. 1 Kraków: Polish Academy of Learning - Main Ingredients in bookstores Gebethner and Wolff, 1935, p 478 Reprint: Department of National Theatre. Ossolińskich, Kraków 1989, * Hedwig and Eugene Szulcowie, Evangelical Reformed Cemetery in Warsaw, Warsaw, 1989 {{DEFAULTSORT:Beyer, Henryka 1782 births 1855 deaths Artists from Szczecin 19th-century German women artists 19th-century Polish painters Polish women painters Expatriates from the Kingdom of Prussia in Congress Poland 19th-century Polish women artists Painters from Warsaw Still life painters Converts to Calvinism from Lutheranism

Life and career

See also

References