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City Street

Odo Dobrowolski

  • City Street 2
Basic information
ID
Г-I-604
Author
Odo Dobrowolski
Name
City Street
Date of creation
1907–?
Technique
drawing
Material
paper on cardboard watercolour Indian ink
Dimensions (height x width, cm)
13.8 x 9.6
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
It is likely that one of the streets of Paris is depicted, dating from the artist’s first visit to the city in 1908–1909. The composition is built on strong colour contrasts, dominated by black executed in Indian ink. Black defines the volumes of the buildings and the simplified figures of people and a horse-drawn carriage. The usually bustling street has lost its vibrancy in the evening light; only the pink reflections of the setting sun in the sky and on the cobblestones add colour to the scene.
Legal regulation
Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

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