Wlastimil (Vlastimil) Hofman ( 1881- 1970 ), JESTER MELODIES, 1911

oil/canvas, 60 x 60 cm
signed and dated l.g.: Vlastimil 1911
on the reverse, on the stretcher bar, pencil inscription: for Art and exhibition sticker
EXHIBITED:
- " Art" XV Exhibition in Cracow, Building of the Society of Friends of Fine Arts, March-April 1911
LITERATURE:
- Catalog of the XV. Exhibition of the Society of Polish Artists " Art" in Cracow, March-April 1911, Building of the Society of Friends of Fine Arts, Cracow 1911. Fine Arts, Cracow 1911, p.12, item cat. 36.

Vlastimil Hofman was one of the most important representatives of Polish Symbolism. He was born in Czech Prague of a mixed Polish-Czech marriage. In 1889 the family moved to Cracow, where the artist studied and took up studies at the Cracow School of Fine Arts in the studios of Florian Cynk, Jacek Malczewski, Jozef Unierzyski and Jan Stanislawski. In 1899-1901 he developed his skills at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Jean-Léon Gérôme . In 1901-1902 he was also in the studio of Leon Wyczółkowski. He participated in numerous exhibitions and traveled extensively in Europe. Until 1939, he lived in Cracow. He spent the period of World War II in Palestine, and after the war returned to Poland to settle in 1947 in Szklarska Poreba, where he died in 1970. He was a member of Czech and Polish art associations, including the Group of Five, for which Cyprian Kamil Norwid became a patron. He was a continuator of Jacek Malczewski's legacy, reaching for symbolic and allegorical themes. An example of this is this early painting showing a mother and child in half form, in the convention of iconography of Our Lady with Child. The woman, wearing a red shawl, is hugging a wrapped, sleeping child, which gives the scene an intimate image of motherhood. Over her left shoulder, a small bird with distinctive carmine plumage sits on a branch with yellowed leaves. It's a Boar (Carpodacus erythrinus), famous for its unusually beautiful singing.