Stanisława Centnerszwerowa

Stanisława Centnerszwerowa (1889–1943) was a Polish portrait and landscape artist who died in the Białystok ghetto.

Early life and education Centnerszwerowa (née Reicher) was born in 1889 into an intellectual Jewish family in Warsaw. She was educated at a private school in Warsaw run by the painter and engraver, Adolf Eduard Herstein. In 1907 she moved to Paris, where she studied painting with Henri-Jean Guillaume Martin and , becoming acquainted with the works of Paul Gauguin, Maurice Utrillo and Vincent van Gogh, who particularly iinfluenced her. In 1911 and 1912, she exhibited at the Paris Salon des Indépendants and also participated in a Polish exhibition in Barcelona, Spain, where her work was shown alongside artists such as Olga Boznańska, Leopold Gottlieb, Mela Muter, and Józef Pankiewicz. During her extensive travels around Europe, including France, Italy, and Yugoslavia, she produced architectural sketches and landscapes, some of which would later appear in exhibitions.

Artistic career In 1912 or 1913, she returned to Warsaw, where she became one of the most prominent Jewish artists of her generation, together with figures such as Henryk Berlewi, , and Henryk Gotlib. In 1913, she participated in the collective exhibition of the "Young Art" Association of Visual Artists and in the second exhibition of Jewish artists, held at the Luxembourg Gallery in Warsaw. From 1914, she frequently exhibited at the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts and participated in numerous exhibitions of the Institute of Art Propaganda. A member of the Jewish artistic association "Muza" (Muse) from 1919, she held her first solo exhibition in 1924 at the Czesław Garliński Salon in Warsaw and other solo exhibitions at the same venue followed in 1927 and 1929. Also in 1924, Centnerszwerowa participated in an exhibition of Polish women artists in Paris. She was one of a small group of women who had a solo exhibition at the Jewish Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts. She was active in the Committee for Jewish Art. In January 1938, at the annual Salon of the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts, she presented a self-portrait, showing herself with a slim face, dark eyes, and a faint smile on her lips.