2024-04-25
Antoni Serbeński was a Polish painter, graphic artist and teacher. His teachers included Teodor Axentowicz and Leon Wyczółkowski. Despite his enormous talent, he lived a modest life. Who was the painter, who was deported to labour camps in 1943 for refusing to paint a portrait of Adolf Hitler?
Antoni Serbeński was born in 1886 on the territory of present Ukraine, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow under Teodor Axentowicz and Leon Wyczółkowski, among others. The war interrupted his education three times. He fought as a soldier in the Austrian army and later as a volunteer in the Polish army. In Rawicz he taught drawing, in 1931 he moved to Ostrzeszów, with which he connected his further life. It is from the period after 1931 that numerous representations of Wielkopolska were painted. He showed landscapes and architecture from the area of Ostrzeszów, Ostrów and Kępno. Serbeński practised painting and graphic arts, in particular wood engraving. Furthermore, he also left behind a series of portraits, which usually showed his friends and acquaintances. The influence of the Cracow artistic world can be observed in his works.
In 1943, the painter was deported to forced labour for refusing to paint Hitler's portrait. He returned to Ostrzeszów in 1945 and spent his last years in poverty. He died on 5 March 1957 in the hospital in Ostrzeszów and was buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery in Ostrzeszów.
So far, two documentaries about the painter's life have been made. The first one in 2010 directed by Andrzej Moś, and the second one in 2016 was made by Tomasz Wojciechowski.
At Artbidy's May auction, it will be possible to bid for a collection of woodcuts by Serbeński. "Teka ostrzeszowska" contains 20 woodcuts of different formats, on thin paper, each covered separately with protective tissue paper. It was bound in Kępno, not far from Ostrzeszów, at Krótka Street No. 1, by a bookbinder Jan Wróbel. The compositions cover a wide range of subjects: from a child's portrait, through the landscape to still life.