Dimensions: 65 x 47 cm
signed, dated and described at the bottom: 'Auto-Witkacy | (T.C) 1931 6/I | Evening of 3 Kings Napa' and described on the underside: 'Z.Z.' and described on the middle: 'Red | Suffering | hand'.
on the reverse a paper ownership sticker: 'Ownership: T. Białynicki-Birula | Zakopane | Zamoyskiego street willa "Olma" | 243', inventory numbers: '242' and '172', stamps from an exhibition of paintings by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz in Nowy Targ, Wrocław and Opole in 1957 and from the First Warsaw Exhibition of portraits by the S.I. Witkacy Company in 1958.
Origins
collection of Teodor Białynicki-Birula, Zakopane
private collection, Warsaw
Exhibited
Exhibition of paintings by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, District House of Culture, Nowy Targ, August 1957.
Exhibition of painting works of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Wrocław, September-October 1957
Exhibition of paintings by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Opole, November-December 1957
Literature
Catalog of the collection of Teodor Białynicki-Birul, compiled by his son Michał, ca. 1957, cat. no. 242 [manuscript, National Library].
Exhibition of paintings by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, exhibition catalog, Nowy Targ 1957, cat. no. 172.
"Theater Diary" 1964, no. 3, illustration before p. 251.
"Cahiers Renaud Barrault," 3me trimestre 1970, illustration before p. 64
Théâtre de Carouge, Geneva 1971, p, 13 (ill.).
Anna Micińska, Urszula Kenar, Beyond Reality by Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz poems and drawings, Cracow 1977 (reproduction on facing page)
"In a small manor house", Wilam Horzyca Theater in Torun, ephemeral print, Torun 1978, p. 12 (il.)
Irena Jakimowicz, De la Forme Pure aux frontières de la conscience, in "Cahier Witkiewicz", Lausanne 1979, il. 18
S. I. Witkiewicz. Génie multiple de Pologne. Mélange d'études de dessins, de peintures et de photographies. Assemble et édite par Alain van Crugten a l'occasion du Festival Witkiewicz, Bruxelles 1981, Lausanne 1981, Éditions l'Age d'Homme, il. 37
K. Pysiak, The Artist and Life, "Here and Now," 1985, no. 9, p. 10 (ill.)
"Water Hen," Wilam Horzyca Theater in Toruń, ephemeral print, Toruń 1985, p. 5 (ill.).
Irena Jakimowicz, On the various uses of the mirror, or Witkacy's self-portraits, in "Rocznik Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie" 1987, no. 31, p. 516 (ill.).
Irena Jakimowicz (cooperation Anna Żakiewicz), Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz 1885-1939, Catalogue of paintings, National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw 1990, p. 116, cat. no. 1354
Biography
His father was a well-known critic, painter and writer, creator of the so-called "Zakopane style" in architecture, Stanislaw Witkiewicz. In 1905-10 he studied unsystematically at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow with Jozef Mehoffer and with Wladyslaw Slewinski in Poronin. He traveled to Italy, France and Germany. In 1914 he participated in Bronislaw Malinowski's ethnographic expedition to Australia, from where he returned to Europe on hearing of the outbreak of World War I. His early painting work was under the sign of Young Poland and the influence of P. Gauguin and Wl. Slewinski. Later he came to a kind of expressionism. In time, as a result of theoretical reflections on form, he gave up painting. He founded a one-man "Portrait Company" and limited himself to making pastel portraits for a living, often created under the influence of stimulants that allowed him to experiment with form. Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz wrote 4 novels, more than 40 dramas, numerous articles and essays on painting, literature, theater and philosophy. During the interwar period, he lived mainly in Zakopane. After the outbreak of World War II, he fled from the Germans to the eastern borderlands, where he committed suicide in the village of Jeziory in Polesia on September 18, 1939.
