Romana LIPEŻ, AUTOPORTRET

Oil, canvas, 100 x 70 cm, signed l.d.: Lipeż 1956.

ROMANA LIPEŻ, born February 5, 1917 in Lviv, died January 18, 2003 in Cracow - Polish painter. Studied decorative painting under Prof. H. Uziembła and Prof. A. Terlecki at the State School of Decorative Arts and Artistic Industry in Cracow (1935-1938), and then at the State Institute of Visual Arts (1938-1939), which was created from the transformation of this school. During World War II, she studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in German-occupied Cracow. 1945-1950 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow in the studios of professors - W. Jarocki, Z. Pronaszko, E. Eibisch and H. Rudzka-Cybis (graduated in 1960). Since 1945, she was a member of the Association of Polish Artists. She took part in dozens of group exhibitions organized by, among others: ZPAP, the Society of Friends of Fine Arts, the Bureau of Artistic Exhibitions, in the exhibition of the series Festival of the Art of Cracow, in the exhibition of Polish painting at the National Museum in Warsaw, in the exhibition in Lyon, where the paintings of several artists from Cracow, associated with the Creative Group "Zachęta", were presented. The paintings of Romana Lipe¿ were purchased by the Ministry of Culture and Art for state collections. Her works are in the Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, in the Museum of the Jagiellonian University, in the Beskidzkid scattered Museum of the Bielsko-Zywiec Diocese, in the Cracow Palace of Art, are in the offer of auction houses in Poland (including Cracow, Warsaw, Katowice) and abroad (Cologne, Copenhagen) and in many private collections - in Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Great Britain, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, USA, Japan, Hong Kong, Zimbabwe. Romana Lipeż, who was connected with Cracow almost all her life, painted with a predilection for the city's architecture, capturing its romantic backstreets on canvas. As Magda Czubinska, curator of the National Museum in Cracow, wrote (exhibition folder at the Artistic Cauldron Gallery, Cracow 1997): "the artist paints the views of Krakow's architecture with reverence and sentiment," and "captures the mood and character of a neighborhood or place, the time of day and year, the humidity of the air." Much of Romana Lipeż's work is occupied by landscapes, primarily mountain landscapes, portrait paintings and still life maintained in warm pastel colors - the influence of the excellent Polish school of colorism and post-impressionist traditions is evident here. Jerzy Madeyski (folder of the exhibition at the Pollera Hotel Gallery, Krakow 1997) wrote: "The development of Romana Leipez runs in a remarkably straightforwardly consistent manner. The earliest surviving paintings allude [...] to the subtle and clearly idealized sense of beauty of la belle époque." "In the following years [...] she succumbs to the influence of the Capist masters"; "the artist, however, soon begins to be bored by the polite and salon-like painting into which classical, already academic Post-Impressionism has turned. The expression inherent in her temperament is also rising with an increasing wave." She paints her latest paintings "with increasingly broader and stronger brushstrokes, so expressive that the painting sometimes resembles a relief in its impastos." In the extremely rich creative output of Romana Lipeż, an important place is occupied by original designs of stained glass, used for sacred interiors.