Wladyslaw Wankie (1860 Warsaw - 1925 there), Madonna, ca. 1917.

oil, cardboard, 45 × 50.5 cm
Signed p. d.: Wladyslaw Wankie

Provenance:
Collection of Marcin Marczewski, Warsaw (at least until 1989).
Private collection, Poland

Exhibited:
Wladyslaw Wankie 1860-1925. monographic exhibition, National Museum in Warsaw, 1989.

Reproduced:
Wladyslaw Wankie 1860-1925 Monographic Exhibition. Catalog of existing and lost works, compiled by. L. Skalska- Miecik, E. Micke, MNW, Warsaw 1989, p. 78, cat. no. I 46

Probably identical to the painting Madonna exhibited at the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1917.

"The principle of his painting," wrote Antoni Gawinski, "is a property quite rare, the music of tones [...] Wanski's painting is refined [...] always highly artistic... The artist [...] hears colors as well as he sees sound and tones. The marvelous associations of music and painting have found in him a highly focused and beautiful expression."

Polish Paintings in Color Prints, ed. and ed. by S. Kulikowski, 1908, vol. 1, p. 44

"Wanki's painterly improvisations bear the outstanding mark of color poetry. They are the source and expression of spiritual experiences, with a prism so sensitized that any evaluation with the "real apparatus" becomes almost elusive. Wankie, impulsive nature with a vivid, active and busy imagination. As an artist, he is an outstanding individual, unlike and similar to anyone. He is a host in his own perch. In his paintings he gives a Synthesis of his art of great exquisiteness (...) Wankie's art is characterized by a bold romantic pathos, highly sweeping, with broad, decisive, painterly decorative lines. Stylizations of color were the sole and highest task of this artist, in his adoration of whirlwinds, turbulent shamrocks and the play of elements against the backdrop of sea spaces. (...) Foreign critics appointed our artist - a poet of colors (...)"

Apoloniusz Kędzierski, Wladyslaw Wankie, "Tygodnik Ilustrowany", 1923, no. 19, p. 303.