Signed p.d.: Bohusz Siestrzeńcewicz | [...].
on the reverse on the left slat of the frame auction sticker Agra-Art, 2019.
Stanislaw Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz was born in the estate of Niemenczynek near Vilnius. From an early age he soaked up the atmosphere of provincial, small-town Vilnius. This had a significant impact on the themes he took up in his later works. As Eligiusz Niewiadomski wrote:...The world of this artist [was] the Lithuanian town, with its picturesque, muddy street with sunken, old-fashioned cottages, the din of market days, the clatter of Jewry, the crackle of whips, the whinnying and neighing of horses and an incomparable gallery of folk types. In his gouaches, in bold watercolors and, above all, in pen drawings, as if thrown aside, Siestrzencewicz gave a bizarre picture of this world. The subtlety of the drawing, and the astute observation of life and the nature of the forms, the exquisite movement and type of the horses, the picturesqueness and freedom of arrangement - constitute the prime value of these works, surprisingly light in style, veritable impressions.... [E. Niewiadomski, Malarstwo polskie XIX i XX wieku, Warsaw 1926, p. 232].
In the presented painting, the strong influence of the Munich school is evident. This is evidenced both by the subject itself - taken from a native provincial town, as well as by the color scheme maintained in grays, ochres with few breaks of vivid colors. On the other hand, the diagonal composition, the placement of elaborate groups of figures in the foreground and the use of perspective abbreviations indicate the artist's strong ties to Jozef Brandt and Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski.
The painting exhibited and reproduced in:
- Stanisław Bohusz-Siestrzeńcewicz 1869-1927, [ed. E. Ptaszyńska], Suwałki Regional Museum 23 April - 13 July 2022, p. 98, cat. no. 35;
- Bohusz-Siestrzeńcewicz. Painting, [ed. E.Ptaszyńska], Bosz Publishing House, Olszanica 2021, il. s. 27.
Stanislaw Bohusz-Siestrzencewicz - painter, draughtsman, illustrator, educator - after studying at the Vilnius Drawing School, studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts under the batalist B.P.Willewalde. Then he further studied at the Académie Julian in Paris and at Jozef Brandt's studio in Munich, where the Polish artistic colony was concentrated. He traveled several times to Orońsk - Brandt's estate near. Radom, the site of plein-air paintings by his students and friends. From 1900 he lived in Warsaw, later in Vilnius and Poznan. He taught painting lessons in his own studio, and in the academic year 1919/20 taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Vilnius University. He painted portraits, landscapes and, above all, genre scenes from the life of small towns and Lithuanian villages. He was an excellent draughtsman, the author, published in 1914, of Album with reproductions of scenes from the life of the Polish eastern provinces. He made illustrations for books and magazines. He created a plafond in the Technicians' House in Warsaw with an allegorical scene of the March of Knowledge.
