STANISLAW IGNACY WITKIEWICZ (1885–1939)

Polish artist Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (known as Witkacy) produced a series of technically innovative portraits just prior to World War I, mostly of members of his family and close friends. Like the present lot, the portraits were often tightly framed and variously toned.

The subject of the present portrait is Jadwiga Janczewska, the artist's fiancé. Her suicide, which occurred approximately just one year after this portrait was taken, deeply affected the artist and led to a period of international travel and of increased focus on his writings about art and philosophy. In these years that followed, Witkacy would articulate his complex thoughts about how to visualize the mystery of existence within a work of art.