Artur Grottger

Artur Grottger
Photo of Artur Grottger.
Born	November 11, 1837 Ottyniowice, Podolia
Died	December 13, 1867 Paris, France

Artur Grottger (November 11, 1837 – December 13, 1867) was a Polish Romantic painter and graphic artist, one of the most prominent artists of the mid 19th century under the foreign partitions of Poland, despite a life cut short by incurable illness.

Grottger was born in Ottyniowice, Eastern Galicia (now Otynevychi, Ukraine) to Jan Józef Grottger, a Polish officer commanding the Uhlans' Regiment called Warszawskie Dzieci (the Warsaw Children) during the failed November Uprising against the Russians (1831); an amateur artist himself, with many areas of passion.

At age 11, Artur Grottger was sent from a quiet estate to study painting in Lwów under the apprenticeship of Jan Kanty Maszkowski (1848–1852) and (briefly) Juliusz Kossak. In 1852 he embarked on a journey to Kraków (then in the Austrian Partition) to attend classes at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts. He studied under Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and Wojciech Kornel Stattler. In 1855–1858 he went to the Academy in Vienna and studied under Karl von Blaas and Christian Ruben. While in Austria, he travelled to Munich, Venice and to Hungary, where he met his biggest future sponsor and benefactor, Count Aleksander Pappenheim. He returned to Poland in 1865 upon the collapse of the January Uprising.

For a time, Grottger moved between the estates of Polish art lovers in Podolia. In 1866 he met his fiancée Wanda Monné, a young Polish patriot; and spent a lot of time at her house. However, he also developed tuberculosis. In 1867 he went to Paris hoping to make more money; visited Hôtel Lambert, and met with Jean-Léon Gérôme. His illness was getting worse and worse. He went to a sanatorium at Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda in the Pyrénées, where he died on December 13, 1867. His body was brought back to Poland by his fiancée and buried at the Lwów Cemetery on July 4, 1868.