Back

The Seine Embankment

Odo Dobrowolski

Basic information

ID: Г-II-257
Author: Odo Dobrowolski
Name: The Seine Embankment
Country: France
Technique: drawing
Material: pastel white charcoal paper on cardboard
Dimensions: 36 x 26.2 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: landscape
Plot: City landscape
Provenance: Purchased from a private individual

Information about author

Author: Odo Dobrowolski
Author in the original: Odo (Otton) Dobrowolski
Artist's lifetime: 1883–1917
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire
Biography: Odo (Otton) Dobrowolski (1883, Chernivtsi – 1917, Kyiv) was a Lviv artist of Polish-German descent, known primarily as a graphic artist and master of lithography, as well as for his refined works in watercolour and pastel.
He was born into the family of Józef Dobrowolski, an official at the Austrian Governorship of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, and Eugenia Wittich. The artist was likely named after Otto the Great, the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. After graduating from a gymnasium in Lviv, in the mid-1900s he studied in Krakow as a non-matriculated student at the Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1908–1909, with the support of the painter Jan Styka, Dobrowolski lived in Paris before spending a brief period in Munich. Upon returning to Lviv, in 1909–1910, he painted a decorative oil panel for the confectionery of Gabriela Zapolska – a renowned playwright, actress, and one of the most prominent figures of the city's high society of the time. In 1911–1912, Odo worked in Paris once again. Following his return to Lviv, during the russian occupation of the city in the First World War, he created a series of ten lithographs that gained wide acclaim.
In June 1915, he left for Kyiv alongside the retreating russian troops, where the 34-year-old artist died in 1917 under unexplained circumstances.
The artist's oeuvre encompasses numerous cityscapes featuring views of Lviv and Paris, as well as portraits, interior sketches, and life studies. His works are held in Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery, the National Museum in Krakow, the National Library and the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, as well as in private collections.

Object description

This evening winter cityscape is executed in silvery-brown tones on a grey ground, which serves as the colouristic basis of the work. It depicts a street perspective with a low stone wall running along the river embankment. Horse-drawn carriages and a tram move along the roadway.
To the left, in the middle ground, rise three-storey houses with lights shining in their windows. On the right, between the road and the pavement, stand two gas street lamps. An important compositional accent is provided by the dark silhouettes of bare trees in the foreground on the right. Their spreading branches extend over the the road, the dusting of snow on which the artist has masterfully emphasised with strokes of white charcoal.

Inscriptions

Signed and dated bottom right: "Paris Odo Dobrowolski 1912".

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

The Seine Embankment

Other