Józef Chelmonski
Chełmoński, Józef
Born Nov. 7, 1849, in the village of Boczkach, near Łowicz; died Apr. 6, 1914, in the village of Kuklówka, Warsaw Województwo. Polish painter.
Chełmoński studied under W. Gerson in the Drawing Class in Warsaw from 1867 to 1871 and at the Academy of Arts in Munich from 1872 to 1874. He worked in Warsaw beginning in 1887 and in Kuklówka beginning in 1889. Chełmoński was a leading figure in the Polish school of democratic realism of the second half of the 19th century. His genre scenes, for example, Storks (1900; National Museum, Warsaw), and his landscapes truthfully depict peasant life and express a profound love for the poetic beauty of the Polish countryside.