Ludwik Gędłek, ON POSITION

15,5 x 21,0 cm - oil, mahogany board

Signed l.d.: L. Gędłek. Wien

On the back centrally a sticker with an inscription (in ink): Auf Vorposten; in addition, notes in pencil relating to, among other things, the size of the painting and a paper sticker from the Milwaukee Art Center Collection dated 1962, where the painting was donated by the Rene von Schleinitz Foundation (a private foundation in Milwaukee established in 1953).



The painting depicts the artist's signature scenes of Cossack patrols. This static composition shows resting Cossacks accompanied by their faithful horses. The whole picture is maintained in the refined tones of muted browns, greens, grays and soft blues, characteristic of Gędlek's painting.

This smoothly and precisely painted scene from the Cossack marches of the 17th century is an excellent example of the artist's work - well-known at home, but popular primarily in the Viennese community, where Gędłek lived and worked.

Ludwik Gędłek (Kraków 1847 - Vienna 1904) began his artistic studies at the Kraków School of Fine Arts under Władysław Łuszczkiewicz, and continued them at the Vienna Academy under Eduard Lichtenfels and Carl Wurzinger between 1872 and 1877. As early as 1863, he made his debut at an exhibition at the TPSP in Cracow, where he later exhibited several more times. He lived permanently in Vienna, from where he also sent paintings for exhibitions to TPSP in Lviv, to Aleksander Krywult's Salon in Warsaw and to Dresden. He painted mainly genre and battle scenes with a frequent motif of horses, as well as landscapes, mainly from the vicinity of Cracow. The artist's paintings can be found, among others, in the National Museum in Warsaw, the Lviv Picture Gallery and the Polish Museum in Chicago