Zygmunt Piotrowicz, WASHINGTON, 1894

63.00 x 43.30 cm - oil, canvas duplicated
signed l.d.: Z. PIOTROWICZ | 1894



Zygmunt Piotrowicz (Syrwidy in Samogitia 1862 - Vilnius 1956-57) initially attended Wojciech Gerson's Drawing Class in Warsaw, where he studied under Franciszek Ejsmont. In 1881 he went to St. Petersburg, where, thanks to a scholarship from Countess Przezdziecka, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts there as a free student. In 1884 he received a silver medal for his Study of the Horse, and in 1893 he was awarded the title "non-classnyj chudozhnik."

After his father's death, before 1897, he took over the Syrvida estate with his brothers. He spent the summer and spring months here doing farm work, and moved to his studio in St. Petersburg for the fall and winter. From 1907 he taught drawing at the St. Petersburg City People's School. After the outbreak of the October Revolution, he left Russia and settled in Kaunas. Initially he taught at a gymnasium there, and from 1926 at an art school. Around 1940 he settled permanently in Vilnius.

From around 1885, he painted landscapes depicting his native Lithuanian landscape, especially Samogitian fields, meadows, homesteads and roads, in which he combines a realistic depiction of the subject matter with a lyrical, sometimes melancholy mood and subtle color tones. At the same time he also created portraits, mainly of peasants, and genre paintings related to village life: Mushroom Picking, Camp, Farm.

In addition to the main, "rural", trend of his work, there were works with other themes, related to different stages of the artist's life. In 1885-97 Piotrowicz painted hunting scenes: Hunting Convention, Hunters in the Forest and episodes from the November Uprising: Shot. After his father's death, circa 1897-1900, he depicted genre scenes related to the problem of passing, which include Pogorzelcy or At the Cemetery, and took up religious subjects: On the Road to Egypt, St. Anthony the Hermit, Madonna. After 1900, he painted mainly idyllic genre scenes, such as Idyll, and from around 1904, scenes related to Lithuanian legends, such as Forest Spirit. In 1905, under the influence of the revolutionary storm, he painted the symbolic painting The Whirlwind, which Tsar Nicholas II forbade to be exhibited. Most of Piotrovich's works are lost or in Russia.

He was a member and one of the co-founders of the Society of St. Petersburg Artists (from 1890) and the Association "Encouragement of Fine Arts", established in 1908 among the Polish colonies in St. Petersburg.

He participated in exhibitions in Warsaw at the TZSP 1886-87, 1891-95, 1899-1901, 1906-07, at the Salon of Alexander Krywult 1895, 1897, 1899, 1902 (solo exhibition); in Cracow at the TPSP 1896, 1900, 1908; in St. Petersburg 1890-92 (exhibitions of Pieredwiźniki), 1894-95, 1897-99, 1901-02, 1904-05; in Moscow 1895, Kyiv 1900 and in Kaunas 1925.

After Dictionary of Polish and Foreign Artists Active in Poland (Volume VII)