Olga Boznańska. Kraków – Munich – Paris

Nevertheless she continued to participate in exhibitions and to receive important awards. In 1925 she was awarded the highest honours at the exhibition entitled Polish Portrait/Portret Polski, mounted by the Society for the Promotion of the Fine Arts/Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych in Warsaw, of which she became a member three years later. In 1928 she took part for the last time in the salon of the Société nationale des beaux-arts. Furthermore her works were exhibited in the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Science in New York. In 1929 she took part for the last time in exhibitions at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh and the Salon des Tuileries in Paris. In August 1930 she travelled to Kraków where she remained for a year. There, in the following year, the TPSP organised a solo exhibition for her. In 1932 she exhibited for the last time in the Artists Association Sztuka in Warsaw. In the following years her works could be seen in group exhibitions of Polish art in Moscow (1933), Berlin and Warsaw (1935), Paris and Warsaw (1937), as well as in Poznań (1938). A solo exhibition of twenty-seven of her works took place in 1938 at the 21st Venice Biennale.

By the end of the twenties her financial situation had deteriorated dramatically. In 1932 her income, which mostly came from renting her house in Kraków, was no longer enough for her to travel to her home town. The Polish capital and the national Polish Culture Fund supported her to the tune of several thousand złoty in 1934. In the same year the suicide of her sister Iza led her to a physical and mental breakdown. In 1936 the Polish literary historian and publicist, Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski (1882-1967) purchased a few of her paintings for the Polish state. In May 1937, thanks to the commitment of the painter, Maja Berezowska (1893-1978) a Committee of Friends of Olga Boznańska/Komitet Przyjaciół Olgi Boznańskiej was set up to collect money to purchase her works through the Warsaw National Gallery. In July 1939, in her Paris studio, she was awarded the Commanders Cross of the Order Polonia Restituta by the cultural attaché at the Polish embassy. Olga Boznańska died in the Hôpital de la Pitié on 26th October 1940 and was buried at the Cimetière des Champeaux (the cemetry of the Polish community) in the town of Montmorency, north of Paris.

Axel Feuß, September 2017

Further reading:

Helena Blumówna: Olga Boznańska, 1865-1940. Materiały do monografii, Warsaw 1949

Olga Boznańska (1865-1940). Wystawa zbiorowa, National Museum in Kraków/Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, Kraków 1960

Helena Blum: Olga Boznańska, Warsaw 1974

Münchner Maler im 19. Jahrhundert, vol 1, München 1982, S. 121 f.

Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, vol 13, München/Leipzig 1996, p. 485 f.

Jednodniówka – Eintagszeitung. Neuausgabe, edited by Zbigniew Fałtynowicz / Eliza Ptaszyńska, Muzeum Okręgowe w Suwałkach, Suwałki 2008, also in the catalogue of the exhibition “Signatur - anders geschrieben. Anwesenheit polnischer Künstler im Lichte von Archivalien“, Polnisches Kulturzentrum, München 2008

Ewa Bobrowska/Urszula Kozakowska-Zaucha (eds.): Olga Boznańska (1865-1940), exhibition catalogue of the National Museum Kraków/Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, Kraków 2014 (separate Polish and English editions; further reading there)

Renata Higersberger (ed.): Olga Boznańska (1865-1940), exhibition catalogue of the National Museum in Warsaw/Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Warsaw 2015 (bilingual Polish/English)