Watercolor on paper, signed and dated on the reverse: "W. Królikiewicz 1954".
Dimensions with frame: 63x50 cm (36x25 cm).
Provenance: part of the collection of the Bristol Hotel in Warsaw, from 1945–65.
Władysław Królikiewicz (Lviv 1898 – 1976 Warsaw) – painter, theater set designer, singer. He studied painting and music from childhood. At the age of sixteen, he enlisted in the army; after the end of World War I, he became a career military officer. He graduated from the Higher Real School and the Free Academy of Fine Arts in Lviv (1924–30); he also studied in Kraków and Vienna and took private lessons with K. Sichulski and J. Studnicki. In 1939, he took part in the defense of Warsaw; later, he served as an officer in the Home Army and fought in the Warsaw Uprising. He was awarded the Order of Virtuti Militari and the Cross of Valor. After the war, he worked as a set designer in theaters along the coast. In 1947–48, he organized traveling exhibitions at shipyards and workplaces in the Tri-City area; he also curated exhibitions of his own paintings and hosted ballad evenings. Starting in 1966, he participated in the “Meetings by the Kerosene Lamp” events at the Mazovian Museum in Płock. In 1970, he designed the set for *Zemsta* at the Fredreum in Przemyśl. However, painting was the main focus of his artistic work. He also created works on theatrical themes, such as a portrait of Józef Kondrat in the role of Stańczyk and a caricature of Mieczysław Czechowicz as the Pirate.
