About Stanisław Wyspiański’s sketbooks

Abstract

Young Stanisław Wyspiański’s sketchbooks from the period between 1876–1891 are a valuable source of information on the artist’s art education and early works. 14 folders of drawings and notes preserved to this day document the development of Wyspiański’s talent — from early sketches, to copies of masterpieces of Polish and foreign art, studies of Dürer’s and Schongauer’s works, to field inventories of monuments in the Ukraine, in the Opoczno region and in Lesser Poland, to the results of his research and artistic journeys across Southern and Western Europe. Due to the handy, provisional character of Wyspiański’s sketchbooks, a number of them did not stand the test of time, whereas others are incomplete or in a poor shape. The two best preserved sets of drawing folders are the ones saved by Janina Stankiewiczowa, the artist’s aunt, and the ones bought by Stanisław Tomkowicz, a Galician conservator-restorer. The complicated history of the archives resulted in their dispersion in the collections of a number of museums and private persons: the National Museum in Kraków, the Jagiellonian University Museum, or the National Museum in Warsaw. The article is a review of Wyspiański’s sketchbooks available in the public domain, it presents how the drawing folders emerged and places them in the context of the artist’s activity.