Adam Wiktor Malinowski, Rural Landscape, 1877

62.0 x 78.2cm - oil, canvas signed p.d.: Ad. Malinowski | 1877.

A reviewer at the time wrote about similar landscapes by Malinowski, exhibited in Warsaw's Zachęta Gallery in 1869: The greatest virtue of Mr. Malinowski's landscapes is the local character captured with an unheard-of sense of Polish nature and the Polish sky. Looking at them, we breathe our air, we feel the warmth of the sun illuminating those pines and field pear trees, the coolness in the shade of those groves; we touch that sand on the forest road with our foot, and we can't help but uncover our head in front of the statue which, we remember, we have driven past and passed so many times [....] Everything here is ours; there isn't a cloud in the pale midnight sky that we haven't seen in the past; there isn't a willow tree from which, when we were boys, we didn't pluck a branch or spin a pipe. [...] It is this local character, this plasticization of the artist's contemplation of the surrounding nature, that we value most in Mr. Malinowski's works. (H.Filipowicz, Malinowski's Landscapes, "Tygodnik Ilustrowany" 1869, 2nd half, p. 87).

Adam Malinowski (Lublin 1829 - Warsaw 1892) - painter and theater decorator - began his study of painting in Lublin. From 1851 he worked in the Warsaw decorating department of the Government Theaters under the direction of Antoni Sachetti and Jozef Hilary Glowacki. Since 1864, he worked in Vienna as a decorator of imperial theaters, and in 1873 he became the chief decorator of the Warsaw Government Theaters: Grand, Variety and Summer Theaters. His decorations for operas, dramas and ballets were characterized by "beautiful texture, correctness of drawing and knowledge of stage effects." In addition, he was a successful painter of easel paintings; he painted mainly landscapes, less frequently genre scenes and portraits. He participated in many exhibitions, primarily at the Warsaw Zachęta Gallery (from 1863 about 90 paintings), as well as the Krywult Salon and the Cracow TPSP.