Grocholski Stanisław (1858 - 1932)

Stanisław Grocholski (born June 6, 1858 in Żołynia near Łańcut, died February 26, 1932 in Buffalo) – Polish painter

Son of Antoni Rafał, bearing the Syrokomla coat of arms.

From 1877-1880, he studied under Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and Jan Matejko in Krakow. Later in Vienna under Wurzinger, Paris under Joseph Leon Bonnat, and the Academy in Munich under Alexander Wagner. He lived in Munich for 20 years. Until 1901, he stayed in New Pausing near Munich, then left for North America, to Milwaukee.

Grocholski exhibited an interior of a church in Vienna in 1886. His first recognition came with the painting Drying Laundry (1889) exhibited in Munich. The happiest years of his creative work were associated with Munich, as he found recognition, work, and commissions there. His paintings were quite successful and were purchased for private and public collections. He sent his works to national exhibitions in Warsaw, Krakow, and Lviv.

He lived with his wife Izabela Pawłowska in the villa Passing near Munich, creating a home where a Polish artistic colony gathered. In 1891, he opened his own drawing school, where among others, Gustaw Gwozdecki, Karol Wierusz-Kowalski, Henryk Szczygliński, Soter Małachowski Jaxa were educated.

He painted: portraits, genre paintings (especially fond of Hutsul village and Jewish folklore), religious for Polish churches. His painting is described as treating the subject, often combined with a literary idea.

In the years (1880-1900) the artist exhibited his paintings in Munich’s Glanpalast.

He collaborated with the magazine “Gardenlaube” and “Moderne”, where woodcuts based on his drawings were placed.

In Poland, reproductions of his works were published in the magazines “Kłosy” and “Tygodnik Ilustrowany”.

Stanisław Grocholski was one of the most prominent representatives of Munich painting. Although his work does not possess groundbreaking values, within the framework of genre painting of a realistic nature, the artist’s personality was marked by the appropriate selection of subjects and their depiction of the life of the Polish people and characteristic Jewish types, which were the main subjects of the artist’s interest.

He painted the interiors of peasant cottages, depicting the daily life taking place there: weddings, indulgences, illnesses, and fights. Jews, meanwhile, at prayer.

His known works

* Old Man, Old Woman (1881)
* Woman from Bavaria (1882)
* Drying Laundry (1889)
* Pieta (1901)
* Death of Ophelia (Museum in Lviv)
* Jew
* Walling up of a Nun
* Death of an Orphan (National Museum in Krakow)
* Shema Israel

“KURYER LITERACKO-NAUKOWY”. Supplement to No. 350. “Il. Kuryera Codz.” from December 18, 1933.

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