When I Paint My Masterpiece 24 February 2002 Since Dec. 6, the Radziejowice Palace has housed a recently discovered painting by Józef Chełmoński. The painter was quite prolific so there was nothing surprising in this discovery-just another painting to be added to his oeuvre, and a work of considerable market value as well. But the great painter also left a pleasant surprise. Nearly 90 years after his death, the secrets of his technique are revealed in a large-size unfinished oil sketch. Chełmoński's family, who live in the artist's country estate of Kuklówka, knew about the canvas kept for years in their attic. In the inter-war period, Chełmoński's daughters sold all the pictures left behind by their father except for the oil sketch. That the painting was unfinished is probably the reason it remained in Kuklówka-no buyer took a serious interest in it. Nor was Chełmoński himself particularly taken with this work. The canvas served for years as a window screen in the artist's studio. In 2000, Janusz Pulnar, an expert in Polish painting, was the first to realize the importance of the sketch. "I was shocked by what I saw," he says. "Until then, we had only finished works, while the picture I was shown revealed the secrets of the great master's technique. It was as if he had left the easel for a moment and was supposed to return after a while." The large canvas, 155 cm by 283 cm, was christened by experts At the Horse Fair in Bałta because the painting is very similar to another picture entitled The Horse Fair in Bałta, painted in Paris in 1879. Chełmoński didn't manage to sell it and this is probably why he gave up on the second version of the painting which he was working on simultaneously. According to experts, the sketch attests to Chełmoński's exceptional artistic skills because he used oil from the very start. Participants of a recent seminar in Radziejowice determined the fate of the sketch. The painting is now exhibited on the painter's own easel in Radziejowice Palace, where he paid frequent visits. The official opening of the largest collection of Chełmoński's paintings will take place in Radziejowice Palace in a few weeks. The permanent exhibition will be accompanied by a reconstruction of the artist's studio, with original furniture and equipment. Dorota Dziuba

Get Real With Chełmoński 29 April 2001 For the first time since 1907, the Warsaw public will have the opportunity to see over 100 original works of Józef Chełmoński, one of the greatest artists of Polish realism. The idea behind the exhibit is to present the creative profile of the painter as completely as possible and to reveal the most important elements of his biography. Visitors will also be able to see various family souvenirs, documents, and manuscripts for the first time, next to famous and less well-known paintings, drawings, sketches and albums. This is the first monographic exhibit in Warsaw dedicated to Chełmoński. It depicts the painter's connections with the literature and art of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. The themes that run through the exhibit cover most of Chełmoński's subjects, such as Polish landscapes inspired from Adam Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz, images of peasants and horses, Ukrainian motifs taken directly from Bohdan Zalewski's Eastern folk songs, as well as Mazovian landscapes-works painted in Kuklówka, Chełmoński's last home. The exhibit is being held at the Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature, 20 Old Town Market Sq., tel. 831-76-91. Open Mon., Tues. and Fri. 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Wed. and Thurs. 11 a.m.-6 p.m., through July 31. Tickets cost zl.3 and zl.4. Dorota Dziuba

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