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Bust of Emanuel Machek

Julia Smolkowna

Basic information

ID: С-I-1971
Author: Julia Smolkowna
Name: Bust of Emanuel Machek
Date of creation: 1912
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire
Culture: Contemporary times
Technique: moulding polychrome
Material: plaster
Dimensions (height x width x depth, cm): 54 x 57 x 37

Additionally

Type: sculpture
Genre: portraiture
Plot: Portrait bust

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

The picture is a replica of a bronze bust of Emanuel Machek (1912), a world-renowned ophthalmologist, a graduate of the University of Vienna, and associate professor at the Jagiellonian University from 1882. Between 1892 and 1928, he was an assistant at the ophthalmological department of the Lviv Regional General Hospital; from 1898 to 1922, he was a professor of ophthalmology at the Lviv University, dean of the medical faculty; later, he was rector of the Lviv University and president of the Lviv Medical Society. The characteristics of the portrait are benevolence, sophistication, intellectuality and nobility. The "communicative" character of the work is given by the facial expression as if focused on the perception of the message. The texture of the surface and the free impressionistic shaping of the forms contribute to the inner dynamism of the work.

Inscriptions

Signed and dated on the back: "Smolkówna, 1912".

Portrayed person