Olga Boznańska (1865-1940)
One of Poland’s most original and internationally acclaimed artists, and a Grand Prix laureate at the Paris World Exhibition, she passed away in solitude on 26 October 1940 in Paris.

The artist was born in 1865 in Kraków to a Polish-French family; her father, Adam Boznański, held the Nowina coat of arms and worked as an engineer, while her mother, Eugénie Mondan, was a certified drawing instructor. She initially studied in Kraków, where she and her sister Izabela received a well-rounded education, taking drawing lessons with the prominent portrait artist Kazimierz Pochwalski and attending Adrian Baraniecki’s Higher Courses for Women. In 1886, she moved to Munich, home to a vibrant community of Polish painters led by family friend Józef Brandt, who offered her valuable artistic mentorship. As a woman, she was barred from studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, so she trained at the „free studios” of Carl Kircheldorf and Wilhelm Dürr. Before long, however, she had established herself as an independent artist and opened her studio by 1889. Boznańska later regarded her time in Munich as the most formative period of her artistic career. During these years, she developed her distinctive style and palette. In Munich, she painted portraits, depictions of children, scenes of motherhood, the interiors of her studio, and still lifes. Leading a vibrant social life, she attracted significant attention and regularly exhibited her works in Kraków, Warsaw, Lwów (present-day Lviv), Prague, Vienna, Berlin, London, and Paris. Despite her growing international acclaim, Olga Boznańska’s talents went underappreciated in her native Kraków. Consequently, a few years later, she emphatically declined when the well-known painter Julian Fałat offered her a professorship in the women’s department at Kraków’s Academy of Fine Arts.

A fully matured artist, Boznańska moved permanently to Paris in 1898, where her artistic career flourished until the outbreak of the First World War. She received numerous commissions and awards, including a gold medal at London’s New Gallery and honours at the Paris World Exhibition. Her studio became a magnet for Polish émigrés and artists alike. From Paris, as she had from Munich, she sent her works to exhibitions in Europe’s most prominent cultural centres, and her reputation eventually extended to the United States. In 1913, she submitted Portrait of a Woman in a Shawl to the Carnegie Institute, which now graces a distinguished New York collection. One of the most significant exhibitions she participated in was the 1909 Cent tableaux. L’Exposition des „Mademoiselles” where she presented thirty paintings. In Paris, she taught briefly at the Académie Vitti and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. She was a member of both the Polish Artists’ Society „Sztuka” and the Association of Polish Artists in Paris.

In Paris, Boznańska continued to paint the same subjects she had in Munich: portraits, still lifes, and studio interiors. Her art is marked by an intimate mood and a remarkable sensitivity to colour. She avoided sharp contrasts and favoured a limited palette that gave her works a hazy quality, with few defined lines or forms. While critics often linked Boznańska’s work to Impressionism, which was popular at the time, the connection is somewhat superficial. Unlike artists of that movement, she strove to convey the psychological depth of her sitters, and she opted not to use the bright colours or outdoor scenes typical of Impressionism. Though hardly pandering to common tastes, her pieces still attracted many buyers. Portrait of Konstancja Dygatowa, set against a backdrop of golden greens, was purchased by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. Boznańska’s guiding principle in her portraits was to capture the psychological truth of her sitters, a skill she mastered to perfection: „My paintings look splendid because they are truthful; they are honest and noble. There is no petty-mindedness, no affectation, no pretence. They are quiet yet alive, as though a delicate veil separated them from the onlooker. They exist in their own atmosphere” (from a letter by Boznańska to Julia Gadomska, 1909).

Despite the recognition she garnered as an artist, Boznańska struggled with mounting financial difficulties, exacerbated by the outbreak of the First World War. Although she continued to paint tirelessly, she remained on the periphery of the bustling art scene, thoroughly indifferent to new artistic trends or the rapidly shifting world around her. Even in dire poverty, she painted undeterred, hauling buckets of water to her unheated studio, where mice scurried across the floor. Her only surviving close relative was her sister, who, after years of struggling with mental illness and addiction, took her own life in 1934, which came as a profound shock for the artist. Boznańska died in solitude on 26 October 1940 at the Sisters of Mercy Hospital in Paris.

Olga Boznańska rarely commented on or theorised about her painting; when she spoke of it, she typically detached herself from broad artistic affiliations and underscored her independence. Her work reveals influences from Édouard Manet and James McNeill Whistler, as well as clear inspiration from Diego Velázquez. Boznańska did not follow the latest artistic trends; she dressed in styles from an earlier era and never replaced her long skirts with shorter ones or trousers, a choice many women, particularly those in artistic circles, eagerly embraced at the time. In lifestyle, however, she was ahead of her era. An independent, single woman devoted to her art, she was indeed an extraordinary figure.

Most of Boznańska’s paintings reside in museum collections and rarely appear on the antique market. However, when they do, they command prices well above a million złoty.