Lviv. Cityscape

Odo Dobrowolski

Basic information

ID: Г-I-607
Author: Odo Dobrowolski
Name: Lviv. Cityscape
Date of creation: 1907–?
Technique: drawing
Material: paper on cardboard watercolour Indian ink
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 34.5 x 27

Additionally

Type: graphic art
Genre: cityscape

Information about author

Author: Odo 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 origin. He is mainly known as a graphic artist, particularly a watercolourist, a master of pastels and lithographs. His parents were Jozef Dobrowolski, the Austrian governor of Galicia-Lodomeria, and Eugenia Wittich. Apparently, the artist was named after Otto the Great, the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He graduated from the gymnasium in Lviv. In the mid-1900s, Dobrowolski was in Krakow as a non-degree student of the Academy of Fine Arts. Between 1908 and 1909, thanks to the support of the artist Jan Styka, he was in Paris and then in Munich for a short while. After returning to Lviv between 1909 and 1910, the artist made an oil decorative panel for the confectionery of Gabriela Zapolska, a famous playwright, actress, and a bright representative of the Lviv elite. In 1911 and 1912, he was in Paris again. Then he was in Lviv, where during the Russian occupation he created a series of 10 lithographs, which were very popular. In June 1915, during the retreat of the Russians, the artist went to Kyiv, where he died under uncertain circumstances at the age of 34 in 1917. The artistic heritage of Odo Dobrowolski includes numerous cityscapes, particularly views of Lviv and Paris, as well as portraits, interior sketches, and images of nature. The works are stored in Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery, as well as in the National Museum in Krakow, the National Library in Warsaw, the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, and private collections.

Object description

The work is likely part of a series of the artist’s early pieces, executed prior to his trips to Paris. In the inventory book, it is listed under the title “Piskova Street in Lviv”. The objects depicted by Odo Dobrowolski do not exist on this street, so the veduta remains topographically undefined. The composition shows a section of the street descending steeply into the valley, flanked by brick fence posts and a prominent villa-like building below, with a sculptural relief between the windows and a pediment on the axis. The colour scheme is rendered in warm tones: the villa’s roof and the fence in front are shown in red; in the brickwork of the posts, strips of red brick alternate with ochre-beige. The villa’s plastered façade is painted in the same hues. Green foliage peeks out from beneath the fence’s green railings. Vertically, the composition is intersected by a lamp post leaning to the left, set on a cobbled pavement partially overgrown with grass.

Inscriptions

In the lower right part of the work, there is the author’s signature, “Odo Dobrowolski”, written in italics.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery