By a strange twist of fate, Olga Boznańska never gained the popularity and recognition she so richly deserved in her own country. She is held in high esteem by connoisseurs of art, but in the consciousness of the average viewer she is far behind painters who in terms of the artistry of their works in no way equalled her.
Krakow’s beginnings
She was born in the Galician city of Krakow on 15 April 1865. The atmosphere of the family home was conducive to the development of Olga’s talent. Her mother Eugenia Mondant, a Frenchwoman of French descent and an amateur draughtswoman herself, wanted her daughters to be involved in the arts (the younger Isabella was interested in music). Her father, Adam Nowina-Boznański, a hard-headed engineer who tried to ensure a decent standard of living for his family through his own work, as he had inherited only impeccable manners from his ancestors (although he was also the owner of a tenement house on ul. Wolska), also understood his daughter’s artistic inclinations. She had no chance to study at the School of Fine Arts – in the 19th century women were not allowed there.
She gained basic knowledge under the tutelage of Kazimierz Pochwalski and Józef Siedlecki, and later studied the secrets of the workshop at the A. Baraniecki courses. Soon no one doubted that such a talented girl should continue her education outside Krakow.
The choice fell on Munich …
… the cultural capital of Germany at the time, a city less mannered than Paris, with a large Polish colony among which the twenty-one-year-old Olga could feel more familiar and secure. She had no difficulty in communicating with foreigners, as she was comfortable in several languages. Of course, she couldn’t dream of attending art school, so she studied under Karl Kricheldorf and then briefly under Wilhelm Dürr. She took what she could from them to enrich her own technique, but realised that they did not have much to offer her, as her talent was far beyond them.
At the age of 24, Olga was already looking for her own way in art, and this was not a blind search – she knew exactly what she wanted from the start. She copied paintings by the great masters using the rich collections of the Munich Pinakothek. She travelled throughout Europe for artistic purposes, admiring the works of Velazquez at the Vienna Imperial Gallery. In addition to the Spaniards, some Dutch painters were close to her, but not Italian. She appreciated Titian, but was not impressed by Raphael. She was surprised by the ecstasy of the crowds at the sight of the ‘Mona Lisa’. She began to exhibit her work outside Munich. Her canvases from this period show progress made with amazing speed. Boznanska was aware of this and also knew what her paintings lacked. She had learnt to conjure in her works an inner force that causes the viewer to submit to them completely. She had complete confidence that she could achieve this. Soon, canvases would emerge from under her brush that were mature enough to be confidently called works of art.
The artistic world slowly began to notice her. In 1894, in Vienna, Archduke Karl Ludwig presented Boznanska with a gold medal for her ‘Portrait of the painter Paul Nauen’. At the same time, she received a distinction in London (‘Portrait of Miss Mary Breme’) and a silver medal in Lviv. It was only then that her home town of Krakow appreciated her, and only a year earlier the jury of the Society of Friends of Fine Arts had rejected her painting. This time she received a congratulatory letter from Professor H. Rodakowski, and shortly afterwards J. Fałat offered the artist a professorship at the School of Fine Arts, the same school that had refused to host her a few years earlier. Olga did not accept the offer. She felt well in cheerful Munich and, although she visited her home town willingly, she did not want to settle there for long. She was well aware that her fragile psyche and hypersensitivity did not predispose her to soak up the heavy atmosphere of conservative-bourgeois Krakow.
In 1896, the Salon Société des Beaux – Arts in Paris accepted two canvases by the Polish painter. Olga went mad with happiness, thinking that she had ascended to the summit of her dreams. She was very wrong – this success is only the first leaf to the laurel wreath of her glory.
Life’s dilemmas
Two years later, she decided to settle permanently in Paris. She was doing very well in her artistic career, but not in her everyday life. This caused a lot of worry for the girl’s father, who believed that her unhygienic lifestyle (under-eating, strong tea, cigarettes) was killing her. Adam Boznański was very concerned about his daughter’s future, constantly supporting her financially, and trying to accumulate capital to provide material security for her later years.
There is an opinion that Olga Boznańska consciously gave up her personal life in order to devote herself completely to art. Who knows how it really was? She could not complain about a lack of admirers. Some of them showed great dedication in their attempts to win the hand of the busy and wandering maiden. For many years, fiancé status
