Paroda „PIEŠINIO MEISTRAS. Stanislovui Bohušui-Sestšencevičiui – 150“, 2019 m. lapkričio 27 d. – 2020 m. sausio 12 d.
Vilnius Picture Gallery (Didžioji St. 4) is hosting an exhibition dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the famous Vilnius painter Stanislovas Bohušas-Sestšencevičius (1869–1927) at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Stanisław Bohuš-Sestšencevičius was born on November 26, 1869. Nemenčinėlė Manor (20 km. from Vilnius, present-day Nemenčinėlė Manor. Riešė eldership), in the family of Lithuanian nobles Stanislovas Bohumil Bohuš-Sestšencevičius and Konstancija Volanaitė.
S. Bohušas-Sestšencevičius received his art beginnings in Vilnius – in the workshop of Mykolas Medardas Rudnickis on Tilto Street and at the Vilnius School of Drawing. From 1888 to 1894 he studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts, in the class of battle painting by Bogdan Willewalde, and from 1894 to 1895 he continued his studies in Paris, in the private studio of Rodolphe Julian, known as the Académie Julian. After 1895, the artist moved to Munich, studied for several years in the studio of Józef Brandt, and became a member of the Munich Kunstverein Society.
In 1900, S. Bohušas-Sestšencevičius returned to his homeland. He was often in Vilnius, travelled a lot to various manors in Lithuania, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. From 1907 to 1920, the artist lived permanently in Vilnius. In 1919 he led an evening study of nude painting at Stephen Batory University.
In 1920, as the Soviet Russian army approached Vilnius, S. Bohuš-Sestšencevičius moved to Poznan. Here he became a member of the artists' society "Świt".
The artist died on May 24, 1927 in Warsaw. He was buried in Vilnius, in the Evangelical cemetery on Tauras Hill. After the cemetery was abolished, the gravestone of S. Bohušas-Sestšencevičius was moved to the Rasos cemetery.
"The Munich period had the greatest influence on the formation of S. Bohuš-Sestšencevičius' creative style," says the curator of the exhibition, art critic Dalia Tarandaitė, "His works have many connections with the works of J. Brandt, Józef Chełmoński, Maksymilian Gierymski and other Polish "Munich residents". The artist loved to paint images of everyday life in the countryside and small towns. He was especially attracted by the hustle and bustle of markets and fairs, cheerful ride scenes, all the episodes with horses – running, racing, resting...
The individual style of S. Bohuš-Sestšencevičius was most evident in the pen drawings. Filled with life and energy, the drawings of S. Bohuš-Sestšencevičius, which perfectly convey instantaneous movement, fascinated the art audience as early as 1896 at the exhibition of the Kunstverein Society in Munich. In 1898–1899, several drawings by S. Bohuš-Sestšencevičius were bought in Paris by the painting trading company Goupil. In 1913 An album of pen drawings by S. Bohuš-Sestšencevičius was published in Vilnius, which gained enormous popularity. The drawings for this album were reproduced by the graphic company "B. Wierzbiski i S-ka" in Warsaw using zincography technique. In 1928, the album was reissued.
While living in Vilnius, Bohušas-Sestšencevičius was known as an unsurpassed portraitist of the charming Vilnius residents, able to convey their external beauty and refined taste. The artist also created symbolic compositions with art nouveau features. He worked a lot in the field of graphics – he printed drawings and caricatures in the periodicals, created illustrations, decorated carnivals, fairs, cabaret performances "Ach" and their publications.
Bohuš-Sestšencevičius loved Vilnius very much and made a lot of efforts to develop the taste of Vilnius residents and raise the artistic culture of the city – he wrote articles about art, gave lectures, and published several books based on them (Vilnius and aesthetics, etc.)."