Witold Wojtkiewicz, RUNNING HORSES, ca. 1907

43.3 x 54.7cm - oil, cardboard glued to cardboard The painting is accompanied by an opinion by Adam Konopacki, dated September 2003, confirming the authenticity of the work.



In 1989, a monographic exhibition of Witold Wojtkiewicz took place at the National Museum in Cracow, where a double-sided painting entitled Garden Party from 1907 was presented under item 303. On the reverse side of this painting was a scene depicting a Sketch of two horses at a gallop. There is also a black and white illustration in this catalog confirming this fact. Garden Party went to auction in 1996, and the lack of information about the painting on the reverse indicates that the separation of the works occurred between 1989 and 1996.

Although Witold Wojtkiewicz died under the age of thirty, his paintings managed to resonate on the Polish art scene. He became famous at an exhibition held in Paris in 1907. André Gide, the French novelist and Nobel Prize winner, who discovered Wojtkiewicz's work at a Berlin exhibition in 1906. - being greatly impressed by the paintings of the young Polish painter, made every effort to present his canvases to the Parisian public. In May, in the introduction to the exhibition catalog, he wrote: One certainly feels - and will feel even more as his talent grows fatter - how deeply Wojtkiewicz is stuck in his country, in his indefatigable race, whose soul, proud and sorrowful at the same time, passionate and torn - but never silent - finds in him a new expression, gained first in music and poetry. But despite all the separateness - I would say: exoticism of his art - a disturbing and peculiar mixture of naturalism, impressionism and grotesque - Wojtkiewicz is related to our young French school, so that among such artists as Daumier, Degas, Toulouse Lautrec, Bonnard, he will be found as among his own. (T. Boy-Żeleński, People Alive, Warsaw 1956, p. 376)



Adam Konopacki points out that the dynamics of brushstrokes evident in Pędzące koniach is analogous to such works as Korowod dziecięcy and especially Orka from 1905 (both in the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw). He also considers the painting to be one of the most expressive works in Polish painting. The artist built up this expression with an oblique composition led from top to bottom (which intensifies the viewer's sense of momentum), the dynamics of animal movement and complemented it with a fiery color scheme that carries a heavy emotional charge. The whole, painted with energetic brushstrokes and with great skill and freedom, indicates the artist's extraordinary talent and maturity as a painter.

The works of this prematurely deceased painter are extremely rare on the antiquarian market. Therefore, the appearance of Rushing Horses is sure to arouse interest among collectors.



The painting exhibited and reproduced:

- Posthumous Exhibition of Witold Wojtkiewicz, TZSP, Warsaw 1909, item 14 (Gardenparty);

- Report of the Committee of the TZSP in the Kingdom of Poland for 1909, Warsaw 1910, p. 19 (Gardenparty);

- B. Domańska, A. Zeńczak, Witold Wojtkiewicz 1879-1909, Catalogue of the Exhibition, vol. II, MNK, Kraków 1989, p. 164, cat. no. 303 [reverse of Garden-Party painting entitled Sketch of Two Horses in a Gallop], il. s. 165.