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Bielsko. Boleslaw Chrobry Square

Jakub Glasner

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-86
Author: Jakub Glasner
Name: Bielsko. Boleslaw Chrobry Square
Previous attributions: Fragment from Bielsko
Date of creation: 1930s
Country: Poland
Technique: colour linocut
Material: paper
Dimensions: 34 x 40 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: landscape
Plot: City landscape
Provenance: Acquired from the artist Roman Turyn, 5 April 1948

Information about author

Author: Jakub Glasner
Artist's lifetime: 1879–1942
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland, the Ukrainian SSR
Biography: Jakub Glasner (Polish: Jakub Glasner; 1879, Rdzawka near Nowy Targ – 1942, Lviv) was a painter and graphic artist of Jewish origin. He was born into a family of innkeepers near Nowy Targ. In the mid-1890s, he moved with his parents to Bielsko (now Bielsko-Biała), where he grew up, received his primary education and developed an interest in painting. He worked as a house painter and graphic artist, but abandoned this occupation and began his art studies in Vienna in 1901–1902.
After two semesters of study, the artist moved to Krakow, where he continued his education at the Academy of Fine Arts. His teachers there included Julian Falat, Teodor Aksentowicz and Jan Stanislawski. In 1905, he travelled to Venice, where he studied under Lucien Simon, and later to Paris, where he attended the studio of Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen. After completing his studies in Vienna, Krakow, Venice and Paris, Glasner returned to Bielsko.
His studio on Piastowska Street became a centre of the city's bohemian life at that time. The artist frequently travelled to Italy and Germany, where he exhibited his works on numerous occasions. He served in the First World War as a soldier in the Austrian army. During this period, he created around 200 drawings, mostly portraits. After the end of the war, he returned to Bielsko. During the interwar period, he also stayed in Lviv, where his studio was located at 11 St Anthony Street (now M. Zankovetska Street).
Following the outbreak of the Second World War and the Nazi occupation in 1939, he fled to Soviet-controlled Lviv. In 1940, using the surname Libidovskyi, he participated in graphic art exhibitions in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Moscow. Glasner died in the Lviv ghetto in 1942.

Object description

The engraving depicts the western row of facades on Bielsko's main square – Bolesław Chrobry Square. The work was completed before 1936, as between 1936 and 1938 a modernist building housing the savings bank was erected to the right of the pedimented building in the background. In the artist's interpretation, the focus is on the calm, measured life of a provincial town. There are almost no people in the central square. Only three cars are parked in the space, which has been used as a car park since the 1920s. The main compositional focal point is the building with a pediment – the Kałuża Tenement House – the only surviving Baroque-era monument in the town.

Inscriptions

At the bottom right is the artist's monogram within a square: "J. G.". Beneath the print are the artist's inscriptions in pencil: on the left – "Bielsko Plac Chrobrego Orig. Linoryt", on the right – "J. Glasner".

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Bielsko. Boleslaw Chrobry Square

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