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Until 27 September, the Gallery of 20th-Century Polish Art presents 10 portraits of Eugenia Wyszomirska-Kuźnicka created by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. Witkacy's pastels are owned by the Katowice History Museum.
In the summer of 1933 Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (Witkacy) spotted and approached Eugenia Wyszomirska in one of Warsaw streets, asking her to pose for a portrait. She was extremely similar to Jadwiga Janczewska, the artist’s fiancée whose suicide in 1914 diametrically changed his life (he often referred to this tragedy in his art).
The painter was fascinated by Eugenia’s irregular, unsettling facial features, perfectly in line with his theory of Pure Form. Their short, yet intense relationship in Zakopane resulted in several dozen portraits of the sitter the artist called the Asymmetric Lady.
After World War II Eugenia settled in Katowice, where she ran a photographic studio. Apart from memories from her youth she had 26 portraits painted by Witkacy. She bequeathed this collection to the city, which contributed to the establishment of the Katowice History Museum (1981).
