He was born in Prague on 2 or 3 April 1896 into an aristocratic family. His real name was Józef Maria Franciszek Hutten-Czapski. His father, Jerzy Hutten-Czapski (1861–1930), was a Polish count, a landowner and a social and political activist. He was descended from the wealthiest branch of the Czapski family, which owned vast estates in the vicinity of Minsk-Lithuanian and in Volhynia, inherited from the Radziwiłłs. His mother was Countess Józefa Thun-Hohenstein (1867–1903), the daughter of the Austro-Hungarian politician and diplomat Frederick Francis Joseph Thun-Hohenstein, who was born and died in Cieszyn and, during his career, served, amongst other posts, as ambassador to Stockholm and St Petersburg. After retiring from diplomatic service, Frederick Francis settled in Prague.

Although Józef Czapski was born in Prague, he spent his childhood on the family estate in Przyłuki (now in Belarus). From a very young age, he received a thorough education, including in the arts. Even before the First World War, he began studying law at the University of St Petersburg, though probably not so much out of a passion for law as in the hope of avoiding conscription into the army. However, as early as 1917, he interrupted his studies and enlisted in the 1st Krechowiecki Uhlan Regiment. On the other hand, being deeply influenced by pacifism and the ideas of Leo Tolstoy, he left the army, enrolled at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in 1918, and, above all, founded a pacifist commune together with Antoni Marylski. He later travelled to St Petersburg on a mission to locate Polish officers who had been taken prisoner and who – as it turned out – had been murdered. There, however, he met Dmitri Merezhkovsky, a Russian writer and thinker known for his unique approach to philosophy, which combines elements of mysticism, historicism and a deep interest in spirituality and religion. Merezhkovsky believed that history is an arena in which a spiritual struggle takes place between good and evil, between spiritual and material forces. His philosophy, deeply rooted in the Russian intellectual and cultural tradition, often centred on the search for the spiritual meaning of history and culture. In his works, he frequently drew upon historical figures and events to illustrate these ideas. This concept served as an inspiration for the young Czapski; it offered a way out of the impasse between the passivity of pacifism and the need to become entangled in the whirlwind of events.

Between 1919 and 1920, Czapski served on the armoured train ‘Śmiały’. He took part in the Kiev expedition. He was awarded the Virtuti Militari Cross. After the end of hostilities, he enrolled at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1923 he co-founded the Kapists painting group. These artists, partly influenced by Józef Pankiewicz, were fascinated by the problem of colour, drew on the tradition of French Post-Impressionism, and dreamt of travelling to France… This path led him to Paris. There, as the one with the best command of French, he became the group’s mentor; he also met many prominent figures, including Sergei Nabokov, from whom he rented a flat for a time and with whom he had an affair. He returned to Poland in 1932, by then a recognised artist. The following years brought exhibitions not only in Poland, but also at the International Art Exhibition in Pittsburgh.

His paintings, particularly those from the post-war period, are, on the one hand, deeply analytical, as can be seen, for example, in his still lifes and portraits. Mystical, frozen moments, constituting an analysis of colour, form and light. On the other hand, there are almost grotesquely exaggerated scenes drawn from everyday life. Sometimes silent, impressionistically immersed in the flash of a glance. Yet these are not caricatures or random scenes. They seem to permeate everyday life; he often focuses on details, minute fragments, snippets of reality, which, as a result, also appear to be a transcendent transcendence of the world’s ordinariness. Czapski is able to penetrate reality to its very core, delving deep into it, leaving us with a sense of unease regarding what we see and what we experience. He has experienced enough to confront ugliness in his art as well – a world that is not merely a study of colour and form, but also a dramatic stage. His depiction of ugliness does not mock or employ irony; rather, it is an attempt to capture what we try to hide beneath the everyday glitz. Merezhkovsky’s ideas seem to continue to resonate in his work – the idea that the future of humanity depends on a synthesis of spirituality and rationalism. Perhaps not so much in the combination of science and religion, but rather in art, where he sees this role. Art which becomes a path to penetrating deeper, spiritual truths that elude casual observation, yet which religion is also unable to reveal to modern man. This quest for a universal experience seems to permeate his work.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, he was taken prisoner and interned in Starobelsk, and subsequently in a series of other camps. He was released in 1941 following the signing of the Sikorski–Mayski Agreement. He then became head of the office responsible for tracing officers and soldiers missing in Russia. He subsequently became head of the Propaganda and Information Department at the Polish Army Headquarters. He was one of the last to leave Russia, and the vicissitudes of war took him via Iraq, Palestine and Egypt to Italy, and then on to Paris. There, in 1947, he contributed to the first issue of *Kultura*, which had been published whilst the magazine was still based in Rome. He would remain associated with the editorial team of *Kultura* – which had since moved to Paris – for many years. His *Memoirs of Starobiel* were also published in 1944. His first post-war exhibition took place in 1951. In the years that followed, he exhibited in Paris, London, Toronto and Geneva, amongst other places.

Czapski studied painting in Kraków, Warsaw and Paris, where he came into contact with the avant-garde artistic movements of the period. His early works were characterised by experimentation with various styles and techniques. In Poland, his works were also exhibited in the 1950s in Kraków and Poznań, and in 1986 at the Archdiocesan Museum in Warsaw. However, it was only after the political changes that his work was shown in the country’s major museums. In the 1980s, the publishing house ‘Znak’ published a collection of his essays entitled *Patrząc* (‘Looking’), and in 1986 *Dzienniki, wspomnienia, relacje* (‘Diaries, Memoirs, Accounts’) was published. He was appointed an Honorary Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. On 12 January 1993, he died in Maisons-Laffitte and was buried in the cemetery at Mesnil-le-Roi, alongside his sister Maria, a distinguished literary scholar.

On 21 December 2021, a bronze plaque dedicated to Józef Czapski was unveiled on the façade of the Thun-Hohenstein Palace in Prague. The commemorative project was carried out in collaboration between the POLONIKA Institute and the Polish Institute in Prague. The plaque was created by the Czech sculptor Paulina Skavova. During the unveiling ceremony, Dorota Janiszewska-Jakubiak, director of the POLONIKA Institute, emphasised that Czapski’s life and the history of his family reflect the fate of Central Europe.