Lviv. Schneider's Cafe

Odo Dobrowolski

Basic information

ID: Г-I-603
Author: Odo Dobrowolski
Name: Lviv. Schneider's Cafe
Date of creation: 1907
Technique: drawing
Material: paper on cardboard watercolour Indian ink
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 19.1 x 14.7

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

One of the artist’s early works, created before his trips to Paris. It is the last depiction of the cafe before its closure in 1907. The foreground of the composition shows the corner of the former Schneider House at 7 Akademichna Street in Lviv. On the right, an arched window is set in a rusticated wall, above which is a balcony. On the left, a metal railing reveals tables under the cafe’s awning. In terms of colour, the artist contrasts areas executed in black ink with light watercolour tones, capturing the bright sunlight on the building’s southern façade. The Schneider House and cafe – a historic building at 7 Akademichna Street (now Taras Shevchenko Avenue) – stood until 1912, when it was demolished to make way for a new structure (the second building of Jonasz Sprecher). The Schneider Cafe, closed in 1907, was popular among Lviv’s artistic elite.

Inscriptions

In the lower right part of the work, there is an inscription, “Kawiarnia Schneidera/ Odo Dobr 07”, written in italics.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery