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Bust of Jan Kasprowicz

Kazimiera Malaczynska-Pajzderska

Basic information

ID: С-I-331
Author: Kazimiera Malaczynska-Pajzderska
Name: Bust of Jan Kasprowicz
Date of creation: 1906
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire
Culture: Contemporary times
Technique: moulding
Material: plaster
Dimensions (height x width x depth, cm): 51 x 66 x 35

Additionally

Type: sculpture
Genre: portraiture
Plot: Portrait bust
Provenance: Museum of the Lubomirski Princes in Lviv

Information about author

Author: Kazimiera Malaczynska-Pajzderska
Artist's lifetime: 1879–1959
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland
Biography: Kazimiera Malaczynska-Pajzderska (4 March 1879, Buchach, now Ternopil region – 12 April 1959, Poznan, Poland) was a sculptor and painter, one of Lviv's most prominent representatives of women's art. The artist was born in Buchach to the Hellersperg-Heller family. In 1897 (according to other sources in 1903), she married Marian Antoni Malaczynski. The artist began her studies in 1898–1900 at the Public Drawing and Sculpture Hall of the Lviv Art and Industrial School and continued them in 1901–1905 with S.-K. Ostrowski and A. Popiel at the private school of S. Batowski, A. Augustynowicz and O. Reichan. In 1906 and 1908–1910 (1906–1913, according to other sources), Kazimiera Malaczynska-Pajzderska studied in Paris at the then popular Académie de Colarossi and the Académie des Grandes Chaumières under Antoine Bourdelle and Felix Charpentier. In 1911 (1913, according to other sources), she married, for a second time in Paris, to the art historian Nicodemus Pajzderski. Until 1913 she signed her works as "K. Małaczyńska" or "K. Heller-Małaczyńska".
Her studies in the artistic centres of Europe led her to experiment with forms, inspired by the Impressionism of Auguste Rodin and the work of Antoine Bourdelle, based on an understanding of the ancient heritage. In 1909, she debuted at exhibitions in Lviv with portraits of Lviv President Tadeusz Rutowski, the Polish modernist poet Jan Kasprowicz, the writer Mariia Levytska and other vigorously modelled sculptures. In 1910, she exhibited a portrait of Adamo Didur as Mephistopheles and the composition "Orphans" at the Paris Salon. In the same year, three plaster sculptures by Kazimiera Malaczynska-Pajzderska were exhibited at the General Exhibition of Polish Art in Lviv: a sketch "Orphans", "Male Torso" (probably a portrait of the painter Tadeusz Pruszkowski), and "Young Man Thinking" (1910). At the Autumn Exhibition in Lviv, eight of the sculptor's works were exhibited, including "Bust of Dobrusia Lesnevych", a portrait of the actor Adamo Didur as Mephistopheles, and "Bust of the philosopher Kazimierz Twardowski" (1911). At the exhibitions in Lviv in 1911, Kazimiera Malachynska-Paizderska presented a bust of Wladyslaw Mickiewicz (1911), a portrait of Marusia Horetska of the Mickiewicz Family (1911), a bust of Helena Bielska (1911), and a portrait of the singer Fernandez (1911). Before leaving Lviv for Poznan in December-January 1912–1913, she exhibited two plaster sculptures, "Portrait of Wladyslaw Witwicki" and "Portrait of Mrs P.". The artist's participation in exhibitions at the Zacheta Gallery in Warsaw (1912) and at the Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Poznan (1915) was successful.
The artist is known for her sculptural portraits – female, lyrical, and male, with the expression of intellectual, creative, strong-willed nature. A sign of her individual style was psychologism, the reproduction of changing moods, behind which one can see the essential, impressionist pictorial form, asymmetry of compositions, expressive movement, impulsive, almost painterly surface treatment, echoes of the Secession, modernised classics and the archaic. Plaster, marble, and bronze embodied creative ideas, and the artist created dozens of works, primarily heads, torsos, and busts.
In the works by Kazimiera Malaczynska-Pajzderska, made between 1908–1912, the maturity of her creative style, the accuracy of psychological features and the authenticity of the reproduction of individual characteristics attract attention. The play of light and shade and the sculpture's connection with the environment are ensured by the "painterly" contours, the indistinct linearity, and the natural inclination of the heads. In addition to portraits and three-dimensional compositions, the artist created several reliefs between 1908 and 1913.
In the field of painting, Kazimiera Malaczynska-Pajzderska created oil portraits, floral still lifes, and landscapes of Lviv, Volyn and Italy, influenced by Impressionism.
From 1913, the artist worked mainly in the portrait genre in Poznan. The medal of the General Regional Exhibition of 1929 and the figurative bas-reliefs on the monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ (1932, 1939) belong to this period.

Object description

The work is dedicated to Jan Kasprowicz, a poet, translator, literary critic, philosopher, historian, and contributor to the "Kurier Lwowski" and "Słowo Polskie", in 1909–1923 lecturer in literature and comparative literature at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, and in 1921–1922 its rector. The sculpture belongs to the early works by Kazimiera Malaczynska-Pajzderska, exhibited at the artist's first exhibitions in Lviv in 1909, including 13 portrait sculptures.
The peculiarity of the work lies in the vigorous modelling and authenticity of reproducing individual characteristic psychological features – the inspiration by A. Rodin and Impressionism, in general, can be seen in the relaxed inclination of the head and shoulders, the naturalness of the facial expression, and the attempt to capture the moment in the flow of events. The artistic solution is conditioned by impressionistic sculptural insights, as evidenced by the asymmetry of the sculptural volumes, the "painterly" surface modelling, the effects of light and shadow, the "blurring" of outlines, and the active interaction of form with space. The intellectualism of the sitter is emphasised by a high, open forehead and a pensive gaze as if conceived by thought and words. The "communicative" nature of the sculpture, its belonging to the time-space of the viewer, is achieved by the low height of the base-shoulders and the author's deliberate disregard for plastic means of separating the image from the environment.

Inscriptions

Signed at the bottom: "K. Malaczyńska"; on the back: "Muz. Lub. / Nr. Spisu 19. / Wys. 50 cm".

Portrayed person