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Lviv Beggar (Newspaper Man)

Julia Smolkowna

Basic information
ID
С-I-1982
Author
Julia Smolkowna
Name
Lviv Beggar (Newspaper Man)
Date of creation
1915–1917
Country
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Technique
moulding polychrome
Material
plaster
Dimensions (height x width x depth, cm)
50.5 x 19 x 19
Additionally
Type
sculpture 3D
Genre
genre art
Information about author
Author
Julia Smolkowna
Artist's lifetime
1880–1944
Country
Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland
Biography
Julia Smolkowna (1880–1944) was a sculptor, member of the Association of Polish Women Artists in Lviv, and granddaughter of the famous Galician politician Franciszek Smolka. She studied at the Lviv School of Art and Industry (1909–1913) and later in Paris (1913–1914). Between 1917 and 1923, she participated in the Association of Polish Women Artists exhibitions in Lviv, where her works were well received. From 1925, she taught sculpture at the Association of Polish Women Artists studio in Lviv at 12 Stefan Batory Street (now Kniazia Romana Street). She died on 28 July 1944 and was buried in the Lychakiv cemetery. The artist is the author of portrait busts, genre compositions, memorial projects, memorial portrait medallions, and bas-reliefs commissioned by A. Zachariewicz and A. Piller and placed on the facades and interiors of some buildings in Lviv. She worked in plaster and bronze. She used a formal system typical of 1900–1918, combining the inspirations of Auguste Rodin, Impressionism, and Secession. In her later works, she used the artistic language of modernised Classicism, "academic Realism," and, less frequently, Art Deco.
Object description
A significant body of J. Smolkowna's creative work is formed by genre scenes that received favourable reviews in contemporary publications. For example, V. Zhyla argued, "Smolkowna's small figures are very mobile as if they were constantly enveloped in air, surrounded by trembling, vibrating energy". S. Makhnievych, in his review of the IV Exhibition of Lviv Artists in 1921, said: "Smolkowna is rooted in modern French sculpture (Rodin), has a lot of courage, scope, and a sense of volume". The "perfection of plasticity and movement" of the sculptor's plot groups was noted by J. Tomicka in her review of the VI Exhibition of the Association of Polish Women Artists in Lviv. The embodiment of the traditional street scene in European fine art – from Annibale Carracci's "professions of Bologna" to Bartolomeo Pinelli – in the system of Impressionism is "Lviv Beggar (Newspaper Man)" (1915–1917). Characteristic features of the work are the plastic generalisation, the emphasis on the present, and the fluidity of the forms of a weak body in which life is still struggling. The image is made more expressive by the reproduction of human interaction with the urban space on a vibrating, shimmering surface: indifferent, luxurious and miserable, rainy, crowded, with the noise of the crowd, the glitter of lanterns, the clatter of stagecoaches, and the grinding of the first trams. The fluid plastic solution of the figure is reminiscent of the late works by Alexander Rodin: "The Burghers of Calais" (1884–1888) and "Monument to Balzac" (1891–1898). With its expressiveness and picturesqueness, the sculpture resonates with many compositions by Z. Kurczynski, who returned to Lviv in 1908, exhibited more than 100 easel works at exhibitions in 1909–1918, and received orders and recognition.
Inscriptions
The signature on the base reads: "J. Smo…".
Legal regulation
Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

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