Edward Okuń, MUSICIAN STUDY, 1898

64,9 x 43,3cm - oil, duplicated canvas signed l.d.: EOkuń [letter E written in O] ROMA | 1898



The year 1898 was a watershed year for Edward Okun's work. That year he and his wife left for the picturesque island of Capri. After staying there for several months, they decided to settle in Rome, and Italy became their home for the next twenty years. The output of the old Italian masters, the Mediterranean landscape and the local culture had an invaluable influence on Okun's painting. He showed off his first results in Alexander Krywult's salon as early as December 1899. The exhibition was of great interest to the Warsaw public. From the description of the exhibition given by Zygmunt Sarnecki in "Tygodnik Ilustrowanym" No. 50 of December 9, 1899, it appears that the artist exhibited both famous paintings (such as Beyond the Seventh Mountain, Beyond the Seventh River and Paganini's Dream) and studies at the time. The featured painting was painted shortly after the artist moved to Rome. It is likely that a year later it was included in the aforementioned exhibition in Krywult's living room.

The studies of models from Roman streets, although still maintained in an academic style, present features peculiar to Okun's work. They are painted freely and softly with a characteristic haze effect. The depiction of the figures is photographic, but treated with great artistic sensitivity. Soon influenced by the secular portraits of the quattrocento era, Okuń began painting portraits against the Italian landscape with its charming towns.

Edward Okuń (Wólka Zerzyńska /now Zerzeńska/ near Warsaw 1872 - Skierniewice 1945) - painter, draughtsman, illustrator - began his artistic studies at the Warsaw Drawing Class under Wojciech Gerson. From 1891 to 1893 he studied at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow, including under Jan Matejko, and from 1893 in Munich under Anton Ažbe, Stanislaw Grocholski and Szymon Hollosy. He completed his studies in Paris. From 1898 he lived permanently in Italy - in Rome, and periodically in nearby Anticoli Corrado, Florence, Sorrento, Amalfi and Capri. In 1914 he traveled to Egypt. In 1921 he returned to Warsaw, where he was a professor at the School of Fine Arts from 1925 to 1930. He traveled to Italy several more times (including in 1928, 1937, 1938), and in 1927 and 1929-1932 he traveled to Yugoslavia, where he created a series of landscapes from the Adriatic Sea - "Jadran". He painted decorative, stylized portraits, idyllic landscapes and compositions with fantastic and fairy-tale themes, close to Symbolism and Art Nouveau. He often designed the frames for his paintings himself, treating them as an integral part of these works. He was an outstanding creator of book graphics; he made illustrations, vignettes, cover designs, initials and interludes, collaborating with the Warsaw magazine Chimera, among others.