Konrad Krzyzanowski (1872 Krzemieńczuk - 1922 Warsaw), Portrait of a Woman in Red (Maria Grossek Korycka), 1916.

oil, canvas, 74 × 66 cm
At the bottom, dedication: to the noble lady Maria Grossek/ in memory of Konrad Krzyżanowski and dated l.d.: 1916
Maria Grossek-Korycka (1869-1926)
Poet, translator, publicist. She was an extremely talented woman. Initially she studied medicine and mathematics in St. Petersburg, then already in Cracow she studied philology. Her poems refer to the Romantic tradition, and at the same time the beginnings of Expressionism can be seen in them. In her literary works she referred to patriotic feelings, including in her 1919 poem The Embroiderer. She addressed issues related to the aesthetics of modernism in her 1929 volume From the Land of Beauty. She wrote columns on social and moral issues, which appeared in the magazine Women's World.


"After resigning from the School of Fine Arts (1909), Krzyzanowski again devotes himself mainly to portrait art. (...) He strives to deepen and expand the subject matter of painting within the framework of a fundamentally crystallized style of his own, the most essential features of which can be defined as a penchant for a free, dynamic, sometimes bravura painting technique, for intense juicy tones and bold textural effects. As time goes by, Krzyzanowski uses more and more diverse color and compositional approaches in his portraits, freely operates with a rich and varied painterly language, trying to capture the individuality, the character of the model, who seems to impose appropriate means of expression on him himself."
L. Skalska-Miecik, Konrad Krzyżanowski, Warsaw 1985, pp. 28-32