6 facts about Zygmunt Waliszewski

Zygmunt Waliszewski (1897–1936) was a Polish painter, a aficionado of the Kapist movement.

Waliszewski was born in Saint Petersburg to the Polish relatives of an engineer. In 1907 his parents moved to Tbilisi where Waliszewski spent his childhood. In Tbilisi began his studies at a prestigious art school. In 1908 he had his first exhibition and participated in the vibrancy of artistic avant-garde. During World War I he fought in the expose of the Russian army, returning to Tbilisi in 1917. He visited Moscow several times and became inspired by the Russian Futurists. He, later, became a supporter of a prolific Futurist activity in Tbilisi. In the to the lead 1920s, he departed for Poland, and fixed in Kraków. Between 1921 and 1924 he studied at Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków in the studios of Wojciech Weiss and Józef Pankiewicz. In 1924 he went to Paris in imitation of his avante-garde organization and continued his studies in painting there under the counsel of Pankiewicz. He was a participant in the Capists’ plein-air painting workshops in Cagnes, Valence, Cap Martin, and Avignon. At the Louvre, he painted copies and travesties of the works of old-fashioned masters in the impression of Titian, Veronese, Velázquez, Vermeer, Goya, and Delacroix. He was after that fascinated by the art of Cézanne, van Gogh, and Matisse.

In 1931 he returned to Poland, residing in Warsaw, Krzeszowice, and Kraków. During this era Waliszewski expected scenery and posters, created tape illustrations, drew and painted caricatures and grotesque scenes. In Kraków he befriended the Polish Formists. Waliszewski painted primarily portraits and figural compositions and landscapes of the rural countryside. He died tersely in 1936.

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