Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz
Polish, 1885–1939
Arthur Rubinstein, Zakopane
INV-1299
Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz
Polish, 1885–19391913/14
Arthur Rubinstein, Zakopane
Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz Polish, 1885–1939 →pigment processphotographic process
Date
1913/14
Medium
Varnished carbon print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 18 × 13 cm (7 1/8 × 5 1/8 in.); Mount: 25 × 17.1 cm (9 7/8 × 6 3/4 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Laura T. Magnuson Endowment
A brilliant and eccentric playwright, painter, and novelist, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz also worked extensively with photography in 1910–14 and again around 1930. His intimate portraits of friends, such as the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, were taken at his family residence in Zakopane, a Galician vacation town. They concentrate on the inner spirit of the subject while pointedly ignoring conventional appearances; at times, as here, they seem even to blur distinctions between masculine and feminine posture or address. Prescient and daring, these portraits, made as gifts for friends, remained unexhibited and unpublished during Witkiewicz’s lifetime.
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