Watercolor on paper, signed p.g. "F.M.Wygrzywalski".
Dimensions in frame: 52x56 cm (33x42 cm)
Feliks Michał Wygrzywalski (Przemyśl 1875-1944 Rzeszów) Polish painter. His son, Feliks Kazimierz Wygrzywalski, was also a painter. Thanks to a scholarship from the Malinowski Foundation, Feliks Michal Wygrzywalski studied in 1893-1898 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and then at the Académie Julian in Paris and Italy. In 1900, he settled in Rome, where he married Italian Rose Imassa. In Rome, he initially engaged in copying works by Caravaggio, Raphael, Guercino, Velázquez and Titian. He also painted landscapes and nudes. He provided illustrations for the Polish weekly Wanderer and for German and Russian magazines. In 1906, he traveled to Egypt, where he created many paintings of oriental themes, especially harem scenes. In 1908 he returned to Lviv, where he was commissioned to decorate the walls of the Lviv Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He also became involved in theater stage design. During World War I, he stayed in Russia. In Rostov-on-Don he became a professor of drawing. He returned to Lviv in 1918 and participated in many exhibitions of painting, in 1932 his individual exhibition was held at the Lviv Society of Friends of Fine Arts. Commissioned by the spa in Krynica, he made a series of fourteen paintings for the Lwigród sanatorium, dedicated to the history of dance. He was a conservative artist, not influenced by the avant-garde trends of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He had his Art Salon in Lviv, which was located at 23 Akademicka Street and was called "Kunstaustellung" (Polish for Art Exhibition). In July 1944 he left Lviv in flight from the Red Army. He evacuated to the west, leaving all his property in Lviv. He made the journey on a horse-drawn wagon from which he fell, suffering an injury (which, according to relatives and friends, was supposed to be the cause of his death). Feliks Michał Wygrzywalski's works can be found in the collections of, among others: National Museum in Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw, Szczecin, National Maritime Museum in Gdansk,Lviv Art Gallery and in private collections.
