Anna Bilinska made a name for herself as a talented, highly regarded portrait painter. Her official artistic career, which lasted only a few years, could be framed by the creation of two self-portraits of the painter. The first, awarded at the Paris Salon of 1887, which brought her international fame, admired at the Royal Academy in London and the Universal Exhibition in Paris, among others. The second, commissioned for the pantheon of Polish artists, on which work was interrupted by the author's death. However, it is Bilińska's 'private' work, landscapes and genre scenes, revealing a sensitivity to colour and her undoubted talent for depicting emotion, that most delight audiences today.

Short biography of the painter
Who was the author of 'In the Window', who aspired to official, academic recognition while approaching intuitively the latest currents in Parisian art? Anna Maria Bilinska was born on 8 December 1854 in Zlotopol (today a district of Novomyrhod, a small town in the Kirovohrad region of central Ukraine). Musically and artistically talented, as a teenager she took her first drawing lessons from the popular illustrator Michal Elviro Andriolli (1836-1893), who was in exile in Vyatka (now Kirov, Russia). The Bohdanowiczs lived there in connection with Anna's father's medical practice. After moving to Warsaw, the future painter attended the Music Institute and exhibited her works at the Warsaw Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts. She also rented an independent studio on Nowy Świat Street. Eventually, she gave up further musical education to take up art seriously.

She began with courses in drawing and painting for women run by Wojciech Gerson (1831-1901), the only opportunity for artistic training for women at the time. In November 1882, with the help of one of her wealthy friends from Greson's course, she began studying in the women's studio at the famous Académie Julian in Paris, under Rodolphe Julian (1839-1907) and Tony Robert-Fleury (1837-1911). Later, she also trained in the studio of Luc-Olivier Merson (1846-1920). After three years, the talented pupil became a studio supervisor at Julian's and later a teacher.

First painting successes of Anna Bilińska
Anna Bilińska quickly achieved her first successes, winning prizes, medals and very complimentary press reviews. Ambitious, independent and talented, she fulfilled her dream of Paris, while Polish artists of the time chose the academies in Krakow or Munich. In 1884 Bilińska lost her father, who financed her education, and a close friend, still from her courses with Gerson, Klementyna Krasowska. A year later her fiancé, the painter Wojciech Grabowski (1850-1885), also died. Paradoxically, the death of her friend brought the artist financial security for further studies, as Klementyna's wish was to donate the money intended for her dowry to Anna Bilińska. Bilińska spent the difficult time of her triple mourning in Normandy, among other places. The following year she returned there with her easel.

"Self portrait" by Anna Bilińska
The painter kept a diary, and she meticulously collected press cuttings, reviews and photographs in an album, which we now know as Memorial. The album of the artist-painter Anna Bilińska.

Mentions and enthusiastic reviews in the international press of the artist's greatest success, 'Self-Portrait', took up more than a dozen pages. The painting won a third-class medal at the Paris Salon (1887). The author depicted herself as an artist with brushes in hand, wearing a painter's apron, without idealisation. As a woman working as a painter, not as a hobbyist practising painting. After presentations in Paris, Krakow, Lvov, Warsaw, Munich, Berlin and London, among others, in accordance with the artist's wishes, the portrait ended up in the collection of the National Museum in Krakow.

"In the window" - Bilińska's view of reality
From Bilińska's correspondence, we know that she was an advocate of a solid, academic technique, thoughtful composition rather than innovative artistic solutions. However, the pastel 'In the Window' is far from the official interpretation of the academy. The subject, the composition, the contrasting juxtaposition of light and shadow, the way the landscape is depicted through the open window, the pure, luminous colours, make it the painter's most modern painting, a painting in which she allowed herself to show her own feelings, her own way of seeing reality.

The pastel was probably painted during a holiday in Boyardville, on the island of Oléron on the west coast of France, which Bilinska visited twice, in the summers of 1889 and 1890. In the picturesque fishing village, she painted for herself and friends. Small, sketch-painted landscapes and two views from the interior were created then. One of these is a pastel, unique in the artist's oeuvre, depicting a young girl at a window. It is not certain whether she painted it on holiday or later in her studio. A quickly annotated sketch has survived.

The framing and composition of the pastel refers to the interest in Far Eastern art that was fashionable at the end of the 19th century, not only in Paris. In mood and subject, it is reminiscent of Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts ('paintings of the flowing world'), depicting the trivial everyday, the intimate, fleeting moment of a hot summer day.

Bilinska was probably familiar with Japanese prints, as well as French prints created under their influence. From a close-up frame, we can watch a young girl standing by the window, her attention momentarily drawn to some person or situation taking place outside. We see 'against the light' a dark interior, with a simple bookcase with books, a ceramic vessel and several Japanese fans placed on the left. The centre of the painting is filled by an open window with luscious greenery visible behind it and bright summer light intensely illuminating the girl leaning out of the window. The sunlight strongly shines through the model's blonde hair braided into a plait and her light-coloured blouse with embroidery at the neck and cuffs, reminiscent of a traditional Ukrainian shirt - soroka. The figure rests her left hand on the window sill, while her right hand holds the open window, whose pane is obscured by a Japanese fabric dyeing stencil - katagami. This clever trick, weaving an element of Eastern culture into an intimate genre shot, was noticed and appreciated by a commentator in the London press, during a presentation at an exhibition of the Society of British Pastelists at the Grosvenor Gallery, in the autumn of 1890.

A year later the painting was exhibited in Paris, and in 1892 at the Pavillon des beaux-arts in Saint-Étienne in south-eastern France. Bilinska noted in her diary that in January 1892 the work was sold in Grenoble for 400 francs. In 1893. Félix Thiollier (1842-1914), a French industrialist from Saint-Étienne, as well as a writer, art collector and photographer, donated a pastel to a local museum.

In June 1892, in Paris, Anna Bilińska married a doctor, Antoni Bohdanowicz (1858-1928). Witnesses on the bride's side were Adam Mickiewicz's eldest son, Władysław (1838-1926), a publicist and translator, and Józef Gałęzowski (1834-1916), a member of the National Government during the January Rising and president of the Polish Museum in Raperswil. At this time, Bilińska also began work on a very prestigious commission - a self-portrait for a prominent collector and patron, Ignacy Korwin-Milewski (1846-1926). The painting was to be part of a gallery of self-portraits by the most eminent Polish painters. Among them, Anna Bilińska was the only woman.

Her artistic career flourished, and so did her personal life. Unfortunately, the artist's health was far from ideal. The Bohdanowiczs left for Warsaw so that Anna could rest. However, a heart disease led to the painter's premature death on 8 April 1893, at the age of 39. The unfinished self-portrait became the last dramatic chord of Anna Bilińska's life and artistic career.

She also did not manage to realise the idea of establishing a professional art school for women in Warsaw, for which she had regularly put money aside. She was initially buried at the Powązki cemetery in a family relative's grave, but a year later she was laid to rest in a grave designed by her husband.

Antoni Bohdanowicz remained the painter's 'guardian of memory' until the end of his life. 35 years after his wife's death, he published her diary, with a subjective selection of correspondence and critical voices, as the book Anna Bilińska. Kobieta, Polka i artystka w świetle jej dziennika i recenzji wszechświatowej prasy [Anna Bilińska: A Woman, a Pole and an Artist in the Light of Her Diary and Reviews of the World Press] (1928), which remains an indispensable source of information on the painter and her epoch to this day.