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Evicted (Poverty)

Julia Smolkowna

Basic information

ID: С-I-1978
Author: Julia Smolkowna
Name: Evicted (Poverty)
Date of creation: 1918
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire Poland
Culture: Contemporary times
Technique: moulding
Material: plaster
Dimensions (height x width x depth, cm): 28 x 17.7 x 28

Additionally

Type: sculpture 3D
Genre: genre art

Information about author

Author: Julia Smolkowna
Artist's lifetime: 1880–1944
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland
Biography: Julia Smolkowna (1880–1944) was a sculptor, member of the Association of Polish Women Artists in Lviv, and granddaughter of the famous Galician politician Franciszek Smolka. She studied at the Lviv School of Art and Industry (1909–1913) and later in Paris (1913–1914). Between 1917 and 1923, she participated in the Association of Polish Women Artists exhibitions in Lviv, where her works were well received. From 1925, she taught sculpture at the Association of Polish Women Artists studio in Lviv at 12 Stefan Batory Street (now Kniazia Romana Street). She died on 28 July 1944 and was buried in the Lychakiv cemetery. The artist is the author of portrait busts, genre compositions, memorial projects, memorial portrait medallions, and bas-reliefs commissioned by A. Zachariewicz and A. Piller and placed on the facades and interiors of some buildings in Lviv. She worked in plaster and bronze. She used a formal system typical of 1900–1918, combining the inspirations of Auguste Rodin, Impressionism, and Secession. In her later works, she used the artistic language of modernised Classicism, "academic Realism," and, less frequently, Art Deco.

Object description

The action scenes embody the "realistic genre" tendencies in Julia Smolkowna's work, which received favourable reviews from art critics. For example, in the "Lvivska Gazeta" pages, V. Zhyla stated, "Smolkowna's small figures are very mobile as if they were constantly enveloped in air, surrounded by trembling, vibrating energy". In the opinion of S. Makhnievych, who reviewed the IV Lviv Artists' Exhibition in 1921, "Smolkowna is rooted in modern French sculpture (Rodin), has a lot of courage, scope, and a sense of volume". The "perfection of plasticity and movement" of the action groups created by J. Smolkowna was noted by J. Tomicka in her review of the VI Exhibition of the Association of Polish Women Artists in Lviv. One of J. Smolkowna's best works is the genre group "Evicted (Poverty)" (1918), in which pain, depression and unbearable life are reflected in depersonalised male, female and child figures, fused together and bent under the weight of misfortune. The sense of unconquerable adversity is reinforced by the movement from right to left, against the active horizontal, and by the monotonous, uniform rhythm. The dramatic nature of the image is emphasised by the repetition of the fate of the poor through the generations. The impression of the "closed circle of poverty", "poverty as a trap", is created by the hemispherical outline of the figures. The play of light and shadow on the protrusions of the vibrating surface and the active impressionistic modelling of the forms give the work a plastic expressiveness.

Inscriptions

On the base on the left is a signature and date: "J. Smolkówna, 1918".

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Evicted (Poverty)

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