Stanislaw Tondos, SUKIENNICE IN KRAKOW

36.3 x 26.3 cm - watercolor, pencil, gouache, paper pasted on cardboard, 36.3 x 26.3 cm (in light passe-partout)

Signed l.d.: Tondos.

On the reverse in pencil: 1117.

Stanislaw Tondos (Krakow 1854-Krakow 1917) is best known as a painter of his hometown of Krakow. Here, after graduating from gymnasium, he studied at the School of Fine Arts under Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and Jan Matejko from 1869-1975. He continued his studies in Vienna, and for a short time also at the Munich Academy under Otto Seitz. Early in his career, he took up veduta painting. He traveled to Venice, Prague, Vienna, Rapperswill, Nuremberg, Magdeburg painting views of the architecture of these cities. His favorite, most frequently used and mastered technique was watercolor, but he also painted in oil and pastels. The most numerous group of his works are views of Cracow. These paintings, depicting - often no longer existing - houses, streets, alleys, are today a testimony to a bygone time, an important iconographic document. The artist also painted views from other Polish cities - Lviv, Poznan, Warsaw. In 1886, together with Juliusz Kossak, he painted a series of 24 watercolors, which were later published in a graphic portfolio as "Jewels of the City of Cracow." In later years there were still cycles of watercolors "St. Mary's Church in Cracow" (1892), "Wawel of the past treasury, seat of the Piasts and Jagiellons" (1910), "Cracow Legions" (1915-1917), painted this time in cooperation with Wojciech Kossak, who was the author of staffage - silhouettes of people, horses, genre scenes. Starting in 1875, Tondos regularly exhibited his works at the Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Cracow. He also took part in exhibitions in Warsaw, including the Zachęta Society and the Krywult Salon. Many of the artist's works were popularized in the form of postcards published by the publishing house of the Salon of Polish Painters. In 1900, at postcard exhibitions in Warsaw and Paris, Tondos was awarded gold medals "for his highly artistic recreation in watercolor designs of Polish cities - Lviv, Cracow, Warsaw."