The Painter
Boleslaw Cybis, a brilliant,
intense, colorful man, ranged like a Viking through the entire world of art. His
paintings, sculptures, and murals won him recognition in Paris, Geneva, Munich, Frankfurt,
Moscow and St. Petersburg, Bucharest and Vienna. Whether in his native Poland, Old Russia,
or on the Golden Horn, whatever he designed attracted the connoisseur.
From 1926-1930 he became fascinated by
the peasants of the country side whom he likened to 15th
century medieval portraits of the masters. Over the next
four years he painted a series of peasant portraits now in
various museum collections. During the 1930's his work first appeared by invitation in
fine art exhibits and museums in the United States, where the STUDIO MAGAZINE
(Contemporary... Masters," April 1934) found his paintings "a striking
example... reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci." In 1932
he lived in Libya, Tripoli, where some of his finest
canvases were painted. Here he painted experimentally with
cement. Over the next few years he exhibits paintings at
the Brooklyn Museum of Art, at Museums in Chicago and
Dayton, Ohio as well as in the International Exhibition of
Paintings at Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh and the
Albright Gallery in Buffalo, NY. Cybis was invited to exhibit his work at major cities on both
sides of the Atlantic. His ceiling mural was awarded the Grand Prix at the International
"Art and Technique" in Paris.
In 1939 Boleslaw Cybis and his wife,
Marja, an
accomplished artist in her own right came to the United States to paint a series of murals
commissioned by their government in the "Hall of Honor" at the New York World's Fair.
Here he completed tow frescos: "Poles Fighting for
American Independence" and "Central Industrial
District and Gdynia" Also shown at the fair was the
textured tapestry rug, "Walking through a Park",
deisgned by Boleslaw and Marja Cybis. He then toured the
U.S., sketching and painting Native American
Indians.
