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Sunday in Rajcza

Jakub Glasner

  • Sunday in Rajcza
Basic information
ID
Г-IV-90
Author
Jakub Glasner
Name
Sunday in Rajcza
Date of creation
1930s
Country
Poland
Technique
linocut
Material
toned paper
Dimensions
18.4 x 27 cm (height x width)
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
Rajcza is a picturesque village in the Beskids, where skiing enthusiasts often used to come – and still do – for weekend breaks in winter. In the technical execution of the linocut, the artist uses just a single printing pass with dark ink. As a result, a significant portion of the paper's surface remains white. These unprinted areas form the image of the snow cover. The composition is made up of a snow-covered square and a crowd of people against the backdrop of an elongated building with a high, snow-covered roof.
Inscriptions
At the bottom right is the artist's monogram: "J. G.". Beneath the print are the artist's inscriptions in pencil: on the left – "Niedziela w Rajczy/Orygin. Linoryt", on the right – "J. Glasner".
Legal regulation
Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery
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