Józef Czapski, TWO FIGURES IN THE MUSEUM

19.50 x 12.50 cm - marker pen, perforated paper
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Józef Czapski (Prague 1896 – Maisons-Laffitte 1993) – painter, draftsman, writer, and journalist; he initially studied law, then in 1918 enrolled at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts. He interrupted his studies to travel to Russia at the behest of the Polish military authorities in search of missing Polish officers.

In 1920, he participated in the Polish-Bolshevik War. From 1923 to 1924, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. In 1924, along with a group of Józef Pankiewicz’s students—who formed the so-called Paris Committee—he left for further studies in Paris, where he remained until 1931. After returning to Poland, he participated in Kapist exhibitions, including one at the Institute of Art Propaganda in Warsaw. A participant in the September Campaign, he was imprisoned, among other places, at the Starobielsk camp; after his release from captivity, he joined Anders’ Army and, in 1941–1942, led search operations for officers and soldiers imprisoned or missing in the USSR.

After 1944, he lived permanently in Maisons-Laffitte near Paris. He was one of the founders of the monthly magazine *Kultura*. As a writer, he published, among other works, *Memories of Starobielsk*, *In an Inhuman Land*, and numerous essays on art. He painted landscapes, still lifes, and interiors, and, less frequently, portraits. In the 1980s and 1990s, the artist’s paintings and drawings were exhibited several times in Kraków, Warsaw, and Poznań.

His painting—initially closely associated with the Pankiewicz school, and later highly individual and expressive—is more extensively documented in an album by Joanna Pollakówna (Czapski, Warsaw 1993).