Henryk Hertz Barwiński (1877–1970), Ciepichalus, March 1916

color lithograph; 24 x 20 cm (inside the mat);
signed on the plate, lower right: HB; place and date, lower left: 1916
Henryk Barwiński, born Henryk Teodor Hertz, pseudonym Kirkor, Zwidlicz (born April 23, 1877, in Warsaw; died December 8, 1970, there)—Polish actor, director, and illustrator.
In 1904, he was drafted into the army to serve on the Russo-Japanese front; to avoid this, he moved to Kraków and continued his acting career there. At the same time, he studied sculpture (beginning in 1906 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków under Konstanty Laszczka). In 1913, he became a member of the board of the Union of Polish Theater Artists in Galicia.
On August 4, 1914, in Lviv, he volunteered for the Polish Legions. He organized a legion theater and designed a medal to commemorate Józef Piłsudski’s name day; in 1917, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the emperor and returned to Lviv in the fall, where he joined the troupe of the local Municipal Theater. In 1920, he fought in the defense of Lviv and was transferred to the reserves with the rank of captain. He was awarded the Cross of Valor twice for his heroic participation in the fighting.
Jan Skotnicki (born August 29, 1876, in Bobrowniki; died January 14, 1968, in Podkowa Leśna) - Polish painter, visual artist, political activist, and inspector of arts and vocational education for Department II of Painting, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts at the Ministry of Art and Culture in 1919. He studied: 1898–1898 at the St. Petersburg Academy (under Jan Ciągliński and Léon Bakst), then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (under Jacek Malczewski, Teodor Axentowicz, Leon Wyczółkowski, and Józef Mehoffer), 1904–1905 in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.