Self-portraits are an extremely important theme in Jacek Malczewski's work. The artist portrayed himself with a frequency unparalleled by any other painter in the history of Polish art. It is impossible to analyse his rich oeuvre without taking into account the works in the collection of the Borys Voznytskyi National Art Gallery in Lvov. The collection of Malczewski's paintings gathered there (68 works) is the largest held outside the present-day borders of Poland.

He was educated at the Kraków School of Fine Arts, where his teacher was, among others, Jan Matejko. Between 1875 and 1877, he attended the School of Fine Arts in Paris. The painter's artistic personality was influenced by numerous journeys - he visited Italy, Lvov, Vienna and Munich. It was in Lviv that the first individual 'Exhibition of a hundred works by Jacek Malczewski', organised by the Society of Friends of the Fine Arts, was held in 1903. Malczewski was also active as a teacher - he was a professor, and between 1912 and 1914 he was the rector of the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts.
He died on 8 October 1929 and was buried in the Crypt of Merit in the Pauline church on Krakow's Skalka.

The subject matter of Jacek Malczewski's paintings

In the first period of his career, Malczewski painted realistic compositions: from genre scenes inspired by Polish folklore and landscape to historical paintings related to the martyrdom of the Polish nation after the fall of the January Uprising. Over time, he developed his own style of artistic expression. Turning to allegory and symbolism, he began to create paintings in which mythological themes intertwine with religious ones. He combined the realistic form of his works with fantastic content. Also evident in his work is the inspiration of literature, especially Romantic poetry, and the theme of the vocation and role of the artist.

A key position in Malczewski's oeuvre is occupied by portrait works, including - unusually in his case - self-portraits. This can be attributed in part to the mythologisation of the artist in the second half of the 19th century, although the painter's own personality probably had a considerable influence on his choice of subject matter.

According to art historians, the constant return to self-portraits can be attributed to the artist's constant search and desire for a deeper knowledge of himself and his confrontation with the surrounding world. Today, it is impossible to say unequivocally what the significance of the self-portrait was for Malczewski: was it a manifestation of the artist's self-affirmation or merely an object-like use of his own image?

Malczewski's self-portraits

Jacek Malczewski depicted himself in various costumes and under various guises, surrounded by chimeras, muses (Self-Portrait with Muses, 1905) and fauns (Self-Portrait with Fauns. Triptych, 1906). In his paintings he impersonated both biblical figures (e.g. Christ in Emmaus, 1909, Christ before Pilate, 1910) and literary figures. The multiplicity of the roles he assumed and the accompanying attributes is in marked contrast to the artist's unchanging, proud and focused facial expression in each of his canvases. The self-images created by Malczewski do not reveal the passage of time or changes in physiognomy; on the contrary, they present an eternal, universal image of the artist.

Malczewski's penchant for making himself the subject of his paintings attracted considerable criticism from his contemporaries. The artist was accused of excessive pride and narcissistic tendencies. His predilection for dressing up and taking on various roles was the subject of jokes in the "Zielony Balonik" (Green Balloon) cabaret show at Krakow's Jama Michalikowa, where Malczewski was portrayed as Jacek Symbolewski. One of the cabaret's satirical songs can be applied to his character:

"This in Pirog, this again without
It's a professor, it's Mr [...]
again It's in a jumper, it's with a panther
It's with a tail, it's again without".
Lviv National Art Gallery

Functioning since 1897, the Lviv Picture Gallery - now the Lviv National Art Gallery - is one of the largest museums in Lviv. It has approximately 50,000 exhibits in over a dozen branches located within and outside the city. Among them are as many as 68 oil paintings by Jacek Malczewski (including 11 self-portraits), as well as numerous watercolours and drawings. Malczewski's works were among the first works purchased for the Gallery's collection in 1902. Over the years their number increased, further canvases came to Lviv from the collections of Malczewski's friend Piotr Dobrzański, Count Leon Piniński, Eugeniusz Reiter, and after 1940 from the collection of the Lubomirski Museum and the Ukrainian National Museum, as well as thanks to purchases from private individuals.

The rich collection of paintings, covering all periods of the painter's oeuvre, is an important complement to his works presented in the country.