Józef Pankiewicz

Józef Pankiewicz (29 November 1866 – 4 July 1940) was a Polish impressionist painter, graphic artist and teacher. He spent much of his career in France.

Biography Pankiewicz was born on 29 November 1866 in Lublin. From 1884 to 1885, he studied at the School of Fine Arts in Warsaw under Wojciech Gerson and Aleksander Kamiński. After obtaining a scholarship, he went to Saint Petersburg to study at the Imperial Academy of Arts. In 1889, he and his studio partner Władysław Podkowiński went to Paris to participate in the Exposition Universelle and he was awarded a silver medal for his painting of a vegetable market.

While there, he was influenced by the impressionists and, when he returned to Poland in 1890, attempted to introduce the latest French trends there. The reaction from critics was largely hostile; one going so far as to advise him to see an optometrist. He persisted, however, and later produced a series of portraits inspired by the work of James McNeill Whistler. His portrait, "Mrs. Oderfeld and her Daughter", won a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle (1900). In 1933, he was awarded the Order of Polonia Restituta. A major showing of his works was held at the National Museum to celebrate his seventieth birthday in 1936. The following year, he retired and went to live in La Ciotat, where he died on 4 July 1940.

Selected paintings