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Bust of a Man

Antoni Popiel

Basic information

ID: С-I-1879
Author: Antoni Popiel
Name: Bust of a Man
Date of creation: 1891
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire
Culture: Contemporary times
Technique: moulding polychrome
Material: plaster
Dimensions (height x width x depth, cm): 37 x 25 x 14.2

Additionally

Type: sculpture
Genre: portraiture
Plot: Portrait bust
Provenance: Purchased from a private individual

Information about author

Author: Antoni Popiel
Artist's lifetime: 1865–1910
Country: Austrian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Biography: Antoni Popiel (13 June 1865, Szczakowa – 7 July 1910, Velykyi Liubin) was one of the leading Lviv sculptors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He came from a noble family of the Sulima coat of arms. The sculptor's mother, Antonina, belonged to the Staniček family. His father, Anton-Jozef Popiel, was a government official at the customs in various Galician towns, including Brody and Zolochiv, and a well-known public figure. Between 1895 and 1897, he published the "Gazeta Brodzka" newspaper at his own expense. The future artist spent his youth in Brody and considered the town, as well as Lviv, to be his home. He studied at gymnasiums in Brody and Lviv. He received his professional training at the Krakow School of Fine Arts (1882–1884) under Izydor Jablonski, Wladyslaw Luszczkiewicz and Walery Gadomski, and at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts (1885–1888) under the professors of sculpture Edmund von Hellmer and Otto König. In 1888, he completed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence under the sculptors Augusto Passaglia, Emilio Mancini, and Augusto Rivalta, the author of Veristic Monuments. Influenced by the "Neo-Baroque academism" popular then, he became interested in monumental and decorative sculpture. He returned to Lviv in 1889. He opened his first studio in an outbuilding in the courtyard of the Branytskyi house at 3 Mariiska Square (now Adam Mickiewicz Square). Later, he moved to a studio on the premises of the Benedictine Monastery (now Vicheva Street). The young sculptor was noticed by Leonard Marconi, who offered him a position as his assistant at the Department of Sculpture and Ornamental Drawing at the Lviv Polytechnic and as a member of his workshop. Subsequently, A. Popiel assisted L. Marconi in numerous monumental and decorative works of the 1890s. In December 1894, Popiel married Marconi's daughter Maria. After the death of L. Marconi in 1901, he became an associate professor at the Department of Sculpture and Ornamental Drawing and, in 1905 – an honorary professor. The artist had a studio in Lviv where Kazimiera Malaczynska-Pajzderska, Luna Amalia Drexler, Mykhailo Paraschuk and others received their first artistic training. In 1897, together with the sculptor Edmund Plaszewski, he organised a company specialising in the decoration of houses. From 1895 to 1896, Popiel worked with I. Levytskyi, and in 1900, he took over the artistic direction of his building materials factory. Monumental and decorative compositions, decorations of private houses and public buildings, especially the Lviv City Theatre (now the Lviv Opera and Ballet Theatre), for which the master created 1900 sculptures (1907), form a powerful layer of the artist's work. A. Popiel is the author of numerous monuments, the most famous of which is dedicated to Adam Mickiewicz in Lviv (1904), memorial plaques, commemorative plunges, and easel genre compositions. Popiel's oeuvre, especially monumental and decorative sculpture, is prevailed by the inspiration of Viennese Neo-Baroque, manifested in the figures' energetic modelling and dynamic movement. Several works show the influence of French sculpture and the Neo-Renaissance style, as in the decoration of the railway station and the Lviv City Theatre. A. Popiel's portrait busts are characterised by the accuracy and detail of the reproduction of individual features. The sculptor created several portraits in the 1890s under the influence of Viennese Neo-Baroque, which is reflected in the expressive modelling, the dynamic of the silhouettes, and the theatricality of the head turns. Painterly texture, Neo-Baroque allegory, dynamism and sometimes the integration of symbolic imagery are characteristic of Popiel's easel compositions from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Popiel died at the age of 45 after a severe illness. He was buried in the Lychakiv cemetery. In the autumn of 1910, within the framework of the General Regional Exhibition, a posthumous exhibition of the master's works was opened, which included more than 50 sculptures.

Object description

The figurative concept of A. Popiel's "Bust of a Man" (1891) was based on the idea of renewing culture by turning to folk sources and the aestheticisation of the folk, which was characteristic of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the perception of stories from folk life and folk types as a fascinating artistic theme. The work is full of empathy and respectful attention to the sitter and his individual and typical folk features. A characteristic feature of the figurative solution of the portrait is the assertion of the value of the ordinary folk appearance as a subject of artistic understanding and reproduction. Attention is drawn to the life-affirming image of the peasant – a representative of the infinite energies of folk life. The plastic solution of the work is characterised by the energetic modelling of the face, the details of the folk costume, the picturesque silhouette and textures. The bust is probably paired with the "Bust of a Woman" (1891). It is in line with other works with folk themes in Lviv sculpture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, notably by T. Baracz ("Bust of a Peasant", 1879), W. Brzega ("Man from Verkhovyna", 1901), K. Laszczka ("Bust of a Man from Verkhovyna", 1900) and M. Tarczynowski ("Bust of an Older Man", 1888).

Inscriptions

Signed and dated on the back: "A. Popiel / Lwów 1891".

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Bust of a Man

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