Biography

Polish painter and illustrator. In 1880-84 he studied in Warsaw at Wojciech Gerson's Drawing School. From 1884 he regularly contributed illustrations to leading Warsaw journals such as Tygodnik Ilustrowany and Wędrowiec. In 1885, accompanied by his fellow artist Józef Pankiewicz, he went to St Petersburg and studied (1885-86) at the Academy of Fine Arts. Disappointed with the conservative teaching system and short of money, he returned to Warsaw in 1886 and in 1887 continued working regularly for Tygodnik Ilustrowany, becoming one of its most popular illustrators.

He produced his first watercolours and oil paintings, much under the influence of Aleksander Gierymski, but continued to regard these as secondary activities until a stay in Paris in 1889, again in the company of Pankiewicz. Here, the experience of new French painting, especially that of Claude Monet shown at the Galerie Georges Petit, encouraged Podkowiński to attempt paintings in an Impressionist manner. Works shown at the Aleksander Krywult Salon in Warsaw in 1890 initiated much heated discussion about Impressionism, then new to Polish art.

In 1890-95 he was in Warsaw and painted in an Impressionist style. In his last works he became a pioneer of Symbolism in Poland.