Cynk, Florian Stanisław
Cynk, Florian Stanisław, Polish painter, member of the “Munich School”. From 1863: student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. *3.5.1838 Cracow, †10.10.1912 ibid. 1858-62: studies at the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts/Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Krakowie under Wojciech Korneli Stattler (1800-1875) and Wladyslaw Łuszczkiewicz (1828-1900). 1862/63;: allegedly at the Dresden Academy. On the 17.2.1863 he enrols in the technical painting class at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, studies under Hermann Anschütz (1802-1880). From 1865: resident in Cracow. 1873-78: secretary of the Cracow Academy, 1877-1910: Professor. 1886: director of the Cracow Society of the Friends of the Fine Arts/Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Sztuk Pięknych w Krakowie. Since his early youth Cynk is befriended with the painter Jan Matejko (1838-1893), since 1873 the director of the Cracow Academy. At the Academy he is one of Matejko’s closest colleagues with whom he has close artistic ties. He copies his works as models for woodcuts and supports the perspectives in his large-format history paintings. Cynk paints historic genre compositions, mainly from the time of the Jagiellonian rule, portraits of legends and religious scenes in a smooth, classicist, academic style. In addition he paints portraits and makes copies of paintings by old masters. His works can be found in the national museums in Cracow and Warsaw, in the Cracow History Museum/Muzeum Historyczne Miasta Krakowa and in the National Gallery in Lviv. There is a painting entitled “Matki Bożej Królowej Korony Polskiej/Our Mother of God of the Polish Crown“ (1888) in the church in Stryj (Ukraine): the church at Stary Wiśnicz contains pictures of the Saints Kinga and Adalbert, jointly painted with Matejko.
Further Reading: Halina Stępień/Maria Liczbińska: Artyści polscy w środowisku monachijskim w latach 1828-1914. Materiały źródłowe, Warsaw 1994, p. 8, 33; Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, vol. 23, Munich/Leipzig 1999, p. 269
Online: Matriculation data base, Matriculation book 2, Academy of Fine Arts Munich, 01933 Florian Cynk, http://matrikel.adbk.de/matrikel/mb_1841-1884/jahr_1863/matrikel-01933
Axel Feuß, March 2017
