Signed p.d.: St. Dębicki
Provenance: The artist's family.
A member of the Viennese Secession, a superbly trained painter with panache, he knew Stanislaw Wyspianski and studied simultaneously with him in Paris. After Wyspianski's death, he took over the chair of religious and decorative painting at the Cracow Academy in 1911. Quite a number of Dębicki's works were in the collection of the famous Feliks Manggha Jasieński, which testifies to the recognition the painter enjoyed among his contemporaries. The offered intimate work was probably created during Dębicki's stay in Lviv in the 1890s. At that time, interested in the problems of light and the movement of figures, the artist began to create in the convention of Impressionism.
Stanislaw Dębicki (Lubaczow 1866 - Krakow 1924) - painter, draughtsman, illustrator - began his studies in painting with Ch. Griepenkerl at the Vienna Academy (1881-1884), then studied under W. Luszczkiewicz at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow, later again in Vienna, and in 1884 with A. Wagner at the Academy and privately with P. Nauen in Munich. After returning to Poland, he worked for several years as a teacher at the School of Ceramic Industry in Kolomyja (1886-1890). During this period, he often traveled to nearby Hutsul towns and villages - Delatin, Mikuliczyn, Zabi, Tyszkowce - where he made many sketches and drawing notes. In 1890-1891 he was in Paris and still attended the Académie Colarossi. He later settled permanently in Lviv, from where he moved to Krakow in 1909 to take up the chair of decorative painting at the Academy of Fine Arts. He was a member of the Society of Polish Artists "Sztuka", the Viennese "Secession", the Union of Polish Visual Artists and TPSP in Lviv. He painted in oil, watercolor and pastel, creating landscapes and portraits (including many children's portraits) and above all, genre scenes from the lives of Hutsul and Galician Jews. He was involved in decorative painting, illustration and various applied arts, occasionally also stage design and sculpture.
The artist's work was recalled in the only major monographic exhibition held at the Silesian (now National) Museum in Wroclaw in 1966.
