Olga Boznańska (15 April 1865 – 26 October 1940) was a Polish

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

of the turn of the 20th century. She was a notable painter in Poland and Europe, and was stylistically associated with the

French impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject ...

, though she rejected this label.

Early life

Boznańska was born in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

during foreign

partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partition (politics), partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place between 1772 and 1795, toward the end of the 18th century. They ended the existence of the state, resulting in the eli ...

. She was the daughter of Adam Nowina Boznański, (from a noble Polish family but influenced by

positivism Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positivemeaning '' a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, ''Soci ...

to take up work as a railway engineer) and teacher Eugénie ''

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

'' Mondan originally from Valence, France.

Education and artistic training

Boznańska learned drawing first from her mother who was a teacher in the convent school of

Premonstratensians The Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré (), also known as the Premonstratensians, the Norbertines and, in United Kingdom, Britain and Ireland, as the White Canons (from the colour of their religious habit, habit), is a religious order of cano ...

in Imbramowice near Kraków, then with Józef Siedlecki, Kazimierz Pochwalski and Antoni Piotrowski between 1883-6. She then studied at the Adrian Baraniecki School for Women. She débuted in 1886 at the Kraków Association of Friends of Fine Arts exhibition. From 1886–1890 she studied art in the private schools of Karl Kricheldorf and Wilhelm Dürr in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

- as women were not yet permitted at the Munich Academy.

Career

From then on she devoted herself mostly to

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

still life A still life (: 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, human-m ...

s and occasionally

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

s. She became well connected within the Polish artistic community of Munich, notably

Józef Brandt Józef Brandt (1841 in Szczebrzeszyn – 1915 in Radom) was a Polish painter best known for his paintings of battles in Polish history. Life Brandt studied in Warsaw in the school of J.N. Leszczynski and at the Noblemen's Institute. In 1858 he ...

who became her mentor. Her 1893 ''Portrait of Paul Nauen'' obtained her first public success - being awarded the gold medal at the International Exhibition in Vienna the following year. In 1898, she joined the Society of Polish Artists "Sztuka" and in the same year moved to Paris, where she became a member of the

Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (SNBA; ; ) was the term under which two groups of French artists united, the first for some exhibitions in the early 1860s, the second since 1890 for annual exhibitions. 1862 Established in 1862 by the painter a ...

and started teaching at the

Académie de la Grande Chaumière The Académie de la Grande Chaumière () is an art school in the Montparnasse district of Paris, France. History The school was founded in 1904 by the Catalan painter Claudio Castelucho on the rue de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, near the A ...

and joined the Polish Society of Literature and Art (Polskie Towarzystwo Literacko-Artystyczne). Her most famous 1894 portrait of an unknown child ''Girl with Chrysanthemums'' fascinated her contemporaries by its

symbolist Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: *Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea Arts *Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea ** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...

atmosphere and psychological insight. Boznańska received the French

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

in 1912, the Golden Laurel of the

Polish Academy of Literature The Polish Academy of Literature () was one of the most important state institutions of literary life in the Second Polish Republic, operating between 1933 and 1939 with the headquarters in Warsaw. It was founded by the decree of the Council of ...

in 1936, the Grand Prix at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques la Vie Moderne in 1937, and the Order of Polonia Restituta in 1938. The same year, at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

, one of her portraits was purchased by King of Italy

Victor Emmanuel III Victor Emmanuel III (; 11 November 1869 – 28 December 1947) was King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. A member of the House of Savoy, he also reigned as Emperor of Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941 and King of the Albani ...

. Her paintings can be found in the National Museums in

Wrocław Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...

Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...

and

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

as well as

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and Ca' Pesaro – International Gallery of Modern Art in

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

. She died in Paris at the age of 75.

Gallery

References

External links