Olga Boznańska, one of the most eminent Polish painters at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, is known above all for her masterful portraits. She spent most of her life between Kraków, Munich, and Paris, where, living in the heart of the Montparnasse district amidst a cosmopolitan artistic colony, she built a reputation as a portraitist of international renown.
Rooted in a realist painting tradition but always focused on color and its harmonies, Boznańska engaged in a visual dialogue not only with the great masters of the past but also with her contemporaries. She developed a highly personal style of portraiture. Though not affiliated with any avant-garde movement of her time, the painter followed her own artistic path, crafting a unique form of modernity defined by subtlety and refined beauty. Boznańska has secured a lasting place in the history of European painting as an exceptionally sensitive and innovative artist.
As 2025 marks the 160th anniversary of her birth and the 85th anniversary of her death, the Polish Parliament has named Olga Boznańska one of the official patrons of the year. On this occasion, and in cooperation with the Polish Institute in Paris, we speak with Dr. Ewa Bobrowska about the new presentation of three of Boznańska’s paintings at the Musée d’Orsay.
Dominika Górowska: The Parisian audience has the opportunity to see several works by Olga Boznanska hanging in the Musee d’Orsay. Please tell us more about the project itself, the idea, and the path you, as curator, went through to make it come to fruition.
Ewa Bobrowska: The project was born spontaneously, although I have been dreaming about it since I started working on Boznańska’s paintings, that is, for more than thirty years. In a conversation with Renata Higersberger, curator at the National Museum in Warsaw, about potential events for the Year of Boznańska, the idea of displaying the artist’s paintings, which are in the collections of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, was obvious. For me, an art historian living in Paris and specialising in the work of Polish artists active in the French capital, the realisation that there are Polish works in French collections unavailable to the public is a great frustration. Boznańska, whom I have studied for many years, is very dear to me in particular.
Next to the Louvre, France’s largest and most prestigious museum, the Musée d’Orsay, specialising in art of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, displays a small part of its collections to the public, like other such institutions. Moreover, it is a huge, highly complex and hierarchical administrative machine. In this context, the implementation of the project proved to be very challenging. I used my various connections to make the project happen, thanks largely to the kindness of the curator Leïla Jarbouai, to whom women’s art is very close, and whom I hereby thank once again. This is a great achievement.
D.G.: The exhibition is essentially a presentation of three of Boznańska’s paintings previously held in the storage facilities of the Musee d’Orsay. What are these works? Can you say anything more about them?
E. B.: The paintings in question are purchases of artworks that the French state regularly made for its collections on the occasion of, for example, major exhibitions, especially the so-called salons. These three portraits of women, set in cool, bluish-green colours, were purchased from the artist in 1903, 1912 and 1913. The first, Portrait of Miss Dygat, depicts Janina Klotylda Zakrzewska, née Dygat, a teacher, translator, and social activist. At least two portraits of her by Boznańska are known to exist. The Parisian one, purchased by the French government at the Salon Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, was included in the collection of the Luxembourg Museum, dedicated to foreign artists in 1905, and then passed to the Musée d’Orsay after that institution was established.
Portrait of a Woman in White (Portrait of Elza z Sarów Krausowej), painted in 1912, depicts Elza z Sarów Krausowa, a Cracovian, daughter of Józef Sary, vice-president of the city of Kraków, and a collector who donated her family’s art collection, together with another portrait by Boznańska, to the National Museum in Kraków. The painting we are exhibiting was purchased in 1912 by the French government for the collection of the Luxembourg Museum in Paris.
The identification of the subject of the Portrait of Mrs D. is not conclusively determined. On the reverse is a sketch of a portrait of a woman in whom Velázquez’s Infanta can be claimed to be recognised. The painting was made and purchased in 1913 for the Luxembourg Museum, then included in the collection of the Orsay Museum.
D.G.: In Poland, Boznańska was not immediately appreciated; she was much more quickly recognised by Paris and its open-minded public. What does the recognition and appreciation of the artist look like today in France, the country to which she gave herself for several decades?
E. B.: The question of Boznańska’s appreciation is somewhat more nuanced. As is well-known, it was not easy for female artists at the end of the 19th century; they had to fight to be considered professional artists. Boznańska’s biography indicates that she received her first gold medal for her painting in Munich in 1893. Subsequently, she was awarded prizes in various important artistic centres, including Vienna, London and Paris, but also in Poland – in, for example, Lviv in 1894, where her portrait of Paul Nauen won a silver medal. The same painting was, in fact, purchased for the National Museum in Kraków in 1896, when the artist was only 31 years old. In Kraków, she was also accepted into the extremely exclusive Society of Polish Artists “Sztuka” [“Art”], which gathered the greatest Polish male artistic talents. The association had only two female members, including Boznańska.
When the artist settled in France, her career developed dynamically until the outbreak of the First World War, although let us be clear – she was never awarded the French Legion of Honour, contrary to what one can read in various publications, which in no way belittles her achievements. After the war, which brought the so-called “long nineteenth century” to a definitive end, the world changed. The “roaring twenties” took hold of Paris; the public wanted to forget the war and have fun. They were excited by novelties, including new directions in art. Boznańska’s sophisticated paintings, requiring time and concentration to really appreciate them, did not quite stand up to competition with the flamboyant avant-garde.
Boznańska died in German-occupied Paris in 1940. She bequeathed the contents of her studio, together with the paintings that had remained there, to the National Museum in Kraków. The legacy reached its destination in the 1950s. At the time, Poland was part of the Eastern Bloc, which meant that Boznańska’s work found itself “locked up” in this sphere for many years until the political changes of the 1990s. Before that, only the Polish Library in Paris had organised exhibitions of her works – just after the war, in 1945, a posthumous exhibition of artworks by Boznańska and Józef Pankiewicz was arranged. Then, in 1990, another exhibition took place, which I had the pleasure of putting together with very modest means. Later, Boznańska was shown there [in Paris – editor’s note] in 2016 and is currently on display. Promoted so rarely, Boznańska cannot be recognised in today’s Paris. We hope that the current show in the Musée d’Orsay will at least change that.
D.G.: But – as the exhibition is part of the celebrations of the Year of Boznańska – how would you say to read the work of this great painter today?
E. B.: I am tempted to say that as one reads the achievements of a great painter. I think the great monographic exhibition of 2014/2015, which I had the honour of co-curating, showed what a great talent she was. Its aim was to put straight some of the established judgements about the painter and to draw attention to the visual and artistic values of her work, rather than to sensationalist anecdotes. The artist also became, in a way, an icon of Polish feminism, even though she herself was not a particularly committed feminist. She had a lot of criticism of women’s artwork and put a strong emphasis on artistic values and talent regardless of gender. Boznańska’s paintings are meant to move us, and if we give them a chance, open up to them, give them a moment to work their magic with their forms and colours, a deep aesthetic experience will be ours.
D.G.: Struggling with an environment of artists, art critics, primarily represented by men, as a woman is difficult even today, let alone when she was creating. How did she manage to break through this glass ceiling of the male art world and gain recognition from the greatest authorities in art?
E. B.: Yes, again, Boznańska had not only an extraordinary talent but also an indomitable character and determination. She had an understanding of how to steer her career (in the positive sense of the word), where and what to exhibit in order to gain recognition and respect. And this approach unquestionably brought results.
D.G.: Yes, Boznańska is considered a master of portraiture. What is it about her portraits that distinguishes them from the numerous other depictions of various personalities created at the time?
E. B.: Boznańska painted portraits of people associated with the art circle: art dealers, collectors, and artists. She painted musicians and writers, scientists, and doctors, as well as aristocrats. Amongst the art dealers, let us mention Georges Thomas, with whom she had her first solo exhibition in 1898 in Paris, or Angelo Sommaruge. In 1907, she painted a portrait of the prominent Polish collector, Feliks Jasieński. She willingly took on the portraits of painter friends, including Józef Czajkowski, the aforementioned Paul Nauen, Franciszek Siedlecki, Leopold Gottlieb, Leon Hirszenberg, and the sculptors Bolesław Biegas and Ludwik Puget. She left portraits of prominent figures connected with music: August Radwan, Artur Rubinstein, Maria Otto-Trąmpczyńska, and Jadwiga Lachowska. Among the literati, let us mention Henri-Pierre Roché, Natalie Clifford Barney, the poets Remy de Gourmont and Emile Verhaeren, or Henryk Sienkiewicz. People of science who have sat in front of her include Professor Jan Danysz of the Institut Pasteur in Paris, the philosopher Wincenty Lutosławski, and Melania Lipińska. And that’s only to name a few.
D.G.: Today, 85 years after the artist’s death, we are rediscovering her memory, looking at her work once again, while institutions are engaging in anniversary celebrations. Today, Olga Boznanska’s paintings achieve dizzying prices on the art market, unlike at one point in her life when commissions for her paintings ran out, and the artist found herself in a very difficult financial situation. So, when did the art world realise and appreciate the painter of souls?
E. B.: Yes, Poles are very fond of commemorating anniversaries. Well, it’s a good thing they do, otherwise, some artists would fall into complete oblivion. It seems that Boznańska has “hit the ground running”. A lot is going on in the Year of Boznańska, of varying scale and value. And that is a good thing. It would be even better if these events were supported by new research. Nowadays, as you said, Boznańska’s works fetch high prices on the Polish market, although towards the end of her life, the artist suffered poverty. But this is also a complicated phenomenon. I am not an expert on the art market, but certain regularities are obvious. For example, the fact that the prices of an artist’s paintings go up after their death as it is known that they will not paint any more, so the supply becomes limited.
Another thing is that the art market was practically non-existent in communist Poland. There was some “underground” distribution, but it could not set prices. The market started to regulate the prices of Boznańska’s paintings from the time it actually started to exist, which was in the 1990s. The history of Polish art, on the other hand, appreciated her before that but also rather posthumously, although let us not forget that Boznańska received the highest Polish state decorations, like the Officer’s Cross in 1924 and the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 1938. In 1938, she also had a solo exhibition in the Polish Pavilion at the 21st Venice Biennale. By all accounts, however, Poland should have taken better care of her sooner.
D.G.: How long will the exhibition last?
E. B.: This is unknown. Certainly, the paintings will be on display for several months. But let’s hurry to see them.
BIO:
Dr. Ewa Bobrowska, art historian (Université Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne) and psychologist (Jagiellonian University), specializes in 19th- and 20th-century art history, particularly the work of Polish artists active abroad. Her doctoral dissertation, defended at the Université Paris-Panthéon-Sorbonne in 2001, was published in Polish under the title Polish Artists in France 1890–1918: Communities and Individualities (DiG, Warsaw 2004). She is also engaged in research on women’s art.
She has authored, curated, and served as a scholarly advisor for numerous exhibitions in France, Poland, and the United States, including Estera Karp / Esther Carp at the Historical Museum of Skierniewice (2024), Between Montmartre and Montparnasse at the Silesian Museum in Katowice (2017), Olga Boznańska (1865–1940) at the National Museum in Kraków and the National Museum in Warsaw (2014/2015), and Polonia: The Poles in France from 1830 to the Present Day at the Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration in Paris (2011).
She is the author of numerous scholarly articles, catalogue essays, and conference presentations, as well as the academic editor of publications on Polish artists working abroad—including Olga Boznańska, Mela Muter, Szymon Mondzain, Leon Hirszenberg, Bolesław Biegas, Konstanty Brandel, Józef Pankiewicz, Jan Rubczak, Witold Januszewski, Lubomir Tomaszewski, and artists from the London émigré community. Her research also explores the history of Polish women artists from the late 19th and first half of the 20th century.
She has co-organized international scholarly conferences and research programs, including From Collections to Museums: Collectors and Cultural Mediators in the Time of Feliks Jasieński (1861–1929) (Paris, 2021) and Among Men, Objects, and Signs: A Tribute to Krzysztof Pomian (Paris, 2019).
Dr. Bobrowska is a member of the editorial board of the journal Archiwum Emigracji. Studies, Essays, Documents (Nicolaus Copernicus University). From 1988 to 2002, she served as curator and later head of the art collections at the Polish Library in Paris. Since 2003, she has worked at the Terra Foundation for American Art in Paris.
She is a member of the Polish Historical and Literary Society, the Saisons de culture association, a board member of the Cité Falguière association in Paris, and a scholarly advisor to the Foundation for Polish Émigré Art. She is also an honorary member of the Les Amis de Jacques Boussard association.
(*) The title of the article refers to a quotation by Stanisław Wyspiański: “How to paint now, when Mrs. Boznańska makes such wonderful paintings?”
Editorial note:The incorrect introduction and Dr. Ewa Bobrowska’s biography in the article were published on 16.04.2025. The corrected version was published on 18.04. We would like to apologise to Dr. Ewa Bobrowska for the error and any inconvenience it may have caused.
