Joseph CZAPSKI (Prague 1896 - Maisons Laffitte... Lot n° 31

Faust at the Paris Opera Realized in 1956 Oil on canvas 80 x 66 cm Signed and dated lower right "J.CZAPSKI.56". Provenance: Private collection, acquired from the artist in the 1980s. Jozef Czapski was a Polish painter, writer, intellectual and art critic. Born in Prague in 1896, he grew up in Poland in the aristocratic Hutten-Czapski family. In 1915, he left to study law at the University of St. Petersburg. It was at this time that he began writing his diary. After the Bolshevik revolution, he enlisted in the Polish army, serving unarmed in a pacifist way. In 1921, Czapski enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, then in Krakow at Józef Pankiewicz's studio. In 1923, together with other students, he founded the "Paris Committee" "Komitet Paryski" (K.P.), which turned away from Polish academic painting and aimed to reach Paris to pursue artistic training. It was in 1924 that the painter left for Paris with the other "Kapist" students. Jozef Czapski met Daniel Halévy, André Malraux, François Mauriac and pianist Misia Sert, who became a patron of the Kapist group and a key to the Parisian avant-garde. In 1932, Czapski returned to Poland. In 1939, he was imprisoned in three successive Soviet camps. In 1941, he fought against Nazism in Anders' Polish army. After the war, he settled permanently in the Paris suburbs of Maisons-Laffitte, then Mesnil-le-Roi. He continued to take a stand against totalitarianism, writing for the Polish magazine Kultura, published in France. His early paintings were destroyed during the war, and he did not resume painting until 1948. In 1992, he was appointed Honorary Professor at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts. Czapski ended his life in exile in Paris. Czapski was influenced in particular by the works of Cézanne and Bonnard, but also by Soutine and Nicolas de Stäel. He painted many scenes of Parisian life. Theaters, cafés, restaurants and the opera are recurrent motifs in the artist's work. In addition to Paris, he also depicts French landscapes and seashores. The artist also portrays singers, actors, politicians and writers. His style is profoundly modern, with a humanist outlook on life. Czapski exhibited for the first time in 1930, in France with the Kapistes group at Galerie Zak in Paris. He subsequently featured prominently in the Polish pavilion at the Paris (1937) and New York (1939) World Fairs. In 1990, the Musée Jenisch in Vevey, Switzerland, organized a retrospective of the painter's works. E.V