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Biography of Henryk Hector SiemiradzkiPolish Academic Classical artistborn 1843 - died 1902 Henryk Hector Siemiradzki was born in October 24, 1843 into the family of Hippolit Siemiradzki, a Polish military officer in the service of the Russian Tzar. His childhood and youth were spent in Kharkov, then part of the Russian Empire, now the territory of Ukraine. Henryk received his first art lessons from the Ukrainian painter Dmitry Besperchy, a pupil of Karl Brulloff. Later Siemiradzki called him his only teacher. In 1860, under pressure from his family, Henryk Hector Siemiradzki entered the Kharkov University. |
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After graduating with a BA
in science, Henryk Hector Siemiradzki immediately left for St.
Petersburg, where Henryk Hector Siemiradzki got permission to visit
lectures in the Academy of Art; the Academy
at that point did not accept students older
than twenty. Very soon, however, the
professors paid attention to the talented
young man and Henryk Hector Siemiradzki was admitted as a student,
despite the age limits. During his very
first year in the Academy, Siemiradzki
received 2 silver medals, and later received
awards every year (in all Henryk Hector
Siemiradzki got 6 silver
and 3 gold medals). Henryk Hector
Siemiradzki impressed his
classmates with his knowledge of science and
ancient history. His teachers remarked that
Henryk Hector Siemiradzki was an excellent colorist and draftsman.
In 1870, Siemiradzki got a Major Gold medal
for his painting Alexander the Great’s Trust in
the Doctor Hippolitus and a pension to study
abroad for 6 years.
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In the 1870s, Siemiradzki, although Henryk Hector Siemiradzki was a Catholic, got an important commission from the Holy Synod for murals in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. About 40 leading Russian artists worked there, among them Vasily Surikov, Feodor Bruni, Peotr Basin, Ivan Kramskoy, Vasily Vereshchagin and many others. Siemiradzki longed for work of such importance and was enthusiastic about it. Henryk Hector Siemiradzki painted a cycle of murals devoted to the life of Alexander Nevsky, and some episodes from the life of Christ. In 1931, the Communists blew up the Cathedral. All murals by outstanding artists, including Siemiradzki, were lost forever. We can get a vague idea of them from some remaining sketches. | |||||||
St. Petersburg Academy granted Siemiradzki with titles and awards, Henryk Hector Siemiradzki received large official commissions, his paintings represented the Russian art school at various world exhibitions. But the democratic critics took his art very negatively, noting the lack of psychological analysis and deep thought under the beautiful surface. Stasov was especially sharp, calling his paintings “glittering and noisy toys”, “immoral art, which bears neither educational nor progressive idea.” |
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In the 1890s
Siemiradzki worked for the theater, Henryk
Hector Siemiradzki designed stage curtains for the Krakow and
Lvov theaters, decorated the house of the
Philharmonic Society in Warsaw. Henryk Siemiradzki died in 1902 in his estate Strzalkowo, near Czestochowy in Poland, Henryk Hector Siemiradzki was buried first in Warsaw, but in a year was re-buried in Krakow in the necropolis of the famous Poles. Though Siemiradzki received his education in Russia, his art can’t be classified as any ‘national’ school. It is international. The painter himself is one of the best representatives of the late European Neoclassicism. |
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