Jozef Pankiewicz (1866 Lublin - 1940 Marseille), Landscape from La Ciotat

oil, canvas, 50 × 65 cm
Signed l. d.: (obliterated)

Attached to the painting is an appraisal by Prof. Dr. Michal Haake dated 6.02.2025

Exhibited:
- From Renoir to Chagall 100 years of painting, July 8-September 2, 2025, Manes Gallery, Prague.

Reproduced:
M. Ottavi, A.Mrowiec, "From Renoir to Chagall 100 years of painting, [cat, exhibition] Prague 2025, cat.no.52, p.83.

Also known is Pankiewicz's drawing with an analogous view "Landscape from La Ciotat, ca. 1933 (sepia, pencil, paper, 31.56 × 47 cm) - photo above, included in the exhibition catalog: "Jozef Pankiewicz. Life and Work. To the Artist on the 140th Anniversary of his Birth", National Museum in Warsaw, p. 276, item 471). According to expert Prof. Michal Haake, the drawing probably originated during the painting of the picture "as an effect created in the course of redrawing the picture, e.g. for the purpose of selling or gifting the drawing" (excerpt from the opinion).

"Pankiewicz's art is a mature, subtle, fine, almost over-refined art; an art full of taste and moderation; a serene, sensual, Apollonian art, giving only gentle and harmonious sensations; an art full of joy of life, joy of color, joy of paint. Not only Monet and Cézanne, but also the Venetians and Renoir stood at the cradle of this art. Great intelligence, great sensitivity, great culture - these are the terms that come to mind when talking about Pankiewicz. A man gripped by a passion for constant self-improvement; an indefatigable seeker and experimenter, perpetually hungry for new methods and techniques, constantly, often completely unexpectedly flipping from one direction, from one style of painting to another, and at the same time, under the appearance of perpetual variability, having a certain basic line of his own. A receptive, "ivy-like" nature, like Słowacki, entwining itself again and again around the talents of others, while never losing its independence. An artist, sensing new currents earlier than others and boldly following them." Mieczyslaw Wallis, "Polish Art of the Twentieth Century," Arkady Publishing House, Warsaw 1959, p. 41.