Paderewski in Breslau

Alongside the signature in the bottom right corner the painting also notes they year it was completed, 1912. In May that year Lemberg celebrated the 250th anniversary of the foundation of Lemberg University. Ignacy J. Paderewski was one of the many personalities awarded an honorary doctorate of philosophy.[39] However, at the time there were no reports in the press about a visit by the pianist to the capital of Galicia.[40] Accordingly we may assume that the artist did not personally travel to Lemberg to receive the award because he had only recently returned from an exhausting tour of South Africa.[41] Hence Błocki might possibly have met the maestro two years earlier in October 1910 when he came to Lemberg for the Chopin celebrations, although he never gave a recital at the time.[42] It would be therefore logical to conclude that the artist painted his Paderewski portrait from memory and concentrated on capturing the atmosphere in which the maestro was performing. A detail in the picture also seems to support this thesis because Paderewski’s moustache is longer here than was usual.

Błocki’s portrait arrived in Lower Silesia in 1945 along with the Poles who had earlier been expelled from the former Polish areas in the east of the country. It is probably the sole portrait of the pianist in pastel tones.

Here we should also recall a less well-known portrait of the maestro, a study by Charles Giron (1850-1914)[43] made in 1911, almost simultaneously with Błocki’s work, that can now be found in the stocks of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne. A copy of the study can be seen in the biography of Paderewski written by the Swiss diplomat and music aficionado, Werner Fuchss.[44]

Yet another portrait of the maestro (38.3 x 30.5 cm) is now in the possession of the Ossoliński National Library in Breslau/Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich we Wrocławiu. It was painted by an unknown artist and dated at the start of the 20th century. It was part of a private collection belonging to Jan and Jadwiga Nowak-Jeziorański, who donated it to the Ossolineum [another term for the Ossoliński National Library] in 2005. One thing is clear: this portrait is based on photographs taken in London between 1890 and 1892.[45] Alongside the portrait by Alma-Tadema this also dates back to Paderewski’s first visit to Breslau. The photographs used by the artist show a young, interesting artist and Paderewski used them as handouts for his admirers.