Mikhail Gorstkin-Wywiórski, Sanna in the forest

drawing, charcoal, pencil, paper, dimensions 70 x 100 cm, signed p. d. "M. G. Wywiórski"

Mikhail Gorstkin-Wywiórski (1861-1926) painter and illustrator. His father was a Russian officer Pavel Gorstkin, his mother was a Polish woman Josephine Wywiórska. He studied chemistry at Riga Polytechnic in 1881-1882, and studied at the Munich Academy with Karl Raupp and Nikolaus Gysis in 1883-1887, also in the private studios of Jozef Brandt and Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski. He traveled extensively. In 1895 he moved from Munich to Berlin, where he stayed for a longer time, later living in Greater Poland and Warsaw. He was a member of the Society of Artists in Poznań and a board member of the Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Poznań. From his marriage to Ida Małgorzata Seeling, he had sons Paweł and Piotr. Initially painting oriental scenes, he also took up landscape painting, in which he achieved mastery. Above all, he painted scenes of hunting, vigorous chases, sannas and wolf attacks. He was an excellent observer-landscape painter. The artist also painted nautical works, of Dutch territories or German ports. One of the leading representatives of the "Munich school "in Polish painting.