The artist and teacher Jan Kaczmarkiewicz (1904–1989) studied the history of art at the University of Poznań, and between 1932 and 1939 he was a student of Ludomir Sleńdziński at Stephen Bathory University in Vilnius. He returned to Poland in 1958. He was interested in Classical European art, and studied Byzantine, Renaissance and Baroque art. His work is emphatically retrospective: intertemporal motifs of Classical art prevail in his refined Neoclassical paintings and in his subtle watercolours. Kaczmarkiewicz also liked to interpret the image of the Virgin Mary that formed in the Byzantine and Western traditions, and produced modern variations of well-known images.
Madonna with a portrait of Romuald Twardowski on a locket is an original and unusual work in the style of an icon. The profile of Romuald Twardowski, a composer and organist who was born in Vilnius, is not immediately noticeable on the small brooch on the bosom of the protective Virgin Mary.
Text author Dalia Vasiliūnienė
Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album
HEAVEN AND BEYOND (2016). Compiler Dalia Vasiliūnienė. Text authors Dalia Vasiliūnienė, Skaidrė Urbonienė
Expositions: “Heaven and Beyond. Works of religious art from the collection of Rolandas Valiūnas and the law firm Valiunas Ellex“,
31 May–
24 September
2016, Church Heritage Museum, Vilnius (curators Dalia Vasiliūnienė, Skaidrė Urbonienė)
