Signed p. d.: J. Fałat
On the so-called "back" sticker of a Cracow auction house.
One has to be quite a master to extract from the seemingly chaotic jumble of spots and specks of various colors a human face that is lively, soulful, full of proper expression and temperamental distinctiveness.
Wiktor Gomulicki, quoted in Julian Fałat. Jubilee Exhibition for the 10th Anniversary of the Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola, Stalowa Wola 2009, p. 130.
A very important place in Fałat's work is occupied by portraits. In addition to those most numerous, painted on commission, the artist created self-portraits. Many times, however, the models of Fałat, who was born in the family of a rural organist, become peasants, old people or representatives of lower social classes, to whose fate he was particularly sensitive due to his origin and life experiences. The convention of representation here evolves according to the artist's style, as described by Jerzy Malinowski: from the drawing-like, very carefully and detailed works of the 1980s, through impressionistic, sometimes hastily textured shots, modeled by light, with contrasting but cool colors with a dominance of blue. Examples include Study of an Old Man in a Hat (1890) and, to a greater extent, Head of a Fisherman (1891), painted with irregular, as if haphazardly juxtaposed, different-colored patches that "suggest" rather than "represent." Around 1900, Fałat begins to lay down broad, flat, synthetic color patches, significantly reducing their number. (Jerzy Malinowski, Julian Fałat, Warsaw 1985, p. 46).
Julian Fałat (Tuligłowy [Lvov district] 1853 - Bystra near Bielsko 1929) - painter and pedagogue - one of the most outstanding Polish artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, member of Polish and European creative associations and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, repeatedly awarded medals at international exhibitions. He studied painting with Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and Leon Dembowski at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow (1868-71 and 1881) and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Alexander Strähuber and Johan Leonhardt Raab (1877-80). After his studies he spent several months in Rome, in 1884 he was in Paris and Spain, and in 1885 he made a sea voyage around the world. In 1886, while hunting with the Prince Radziwill family in Nesvizh, he met the later German Emperor Wilhelm II - for whom he then worked as a court painter in Berlin in 1886-95. In 1894-96 he collaborated with Wojciech Kossak on the Berezina panorama. In 1895 he was appointed director of the School of Fine Arts in Cracow, where he thoroughly reformed the teaching system, transforming the school into a modern Academy of Fine Arts (r.1900). He served as rector of the Academy until 1910; after retiring, he settled in Bystra near Bielsko. An excellent watercolorist, he also painted in oils. In his earlier period he worked in the realist convention, with time he lightened and enriched his palette, and in watercolors he introduced an overflowing color patch. He became famous as a painter of hunting scenes usually set in winter scenery; he also painted landscapes, rural genre scenes, portraits, city views.