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Artist at Work on a Portrait

Jakub Glasner

Basic information

ID: Г-V-770
Author: Jakub Glasner
Name: Artist at Work on a Portrait
Country: the Ukrainian SSR
Technique: drawing
Material: toned paper coloured pencil
Dimensions: 40.5 x 31 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: genre art
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 artist is shown from behind, sitting on a wooden chair and painting a large portrait of a member of the party and state elite. His ironic attitude toward the subject is hinted at by a bowler hat casually perched on the easel. The artist was likely pulled away from his own creative process and conscripted into producing a piece of propaganda.

Inscriptions

Below the image on the right are the artist's signature and the date: "J. G./ 8/3. 41".

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Artist at Work on a Portrait

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