Ludomir Sleńdziński

Ludomir Slendziński, the son of painter Vincent Slendziński, was a painter, sculptor and teacher. He was born on 11 November 1889 in Vilnius were he finished the First Gymnasium of Vilnius. In 1909–1916 he went to study art at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art under D. Kardovski. Until 1919 he lived in the south of Russia and engaged in creative and pedagogical activities. In 1920 he returned to Vilnius and was one of the initiators of the Vilnius Plastic Artists’ Society and its leader (until 1939). In 1923 he joined the group of Polish artists Rytm. The years 1923 and 1924 he spent in Italy and visited Paris. In 1925 he took a tour of Europe once again. In 1927–1929 he visited the Middle East and Africa. In 1925 he began to work in the department of monumental painting of the Faculty of Arts of Vilnius Stephen Bathory University. In 1929–1939 he was the dean of the Faculty of Arts. In 1940–1943 he was a lecturer at the Vilnius Academy of Art. In 1945 he retreated to Cracow. In 1945–1960 he worked in the Drawing Department of the Architectural Division in the Cracow Polytechnic Institute. In 1948–1956 he was vice-chancellor of the Cracow Polytechnic Institute and in 1956–1960 its rector. He participated in exhibitions in Vilnius, Warsaw, Poznan, Rome, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Prague, etc. His personal exhibitions were held in 1927 in Lvov and Cracow. He died on 26 November 1980 in Cracow.

Reference: Art album "The World of Landscapes" (Volume I). Compiled by N. Tumėnienė. Vilnius, LAWIN, 2010, P. 265.

The most outstanding representative of Vilnius neo-classicism. Born in the autumn of 1889 in Vilnius, died on 26 November 1980 in Cracow. A representative of the Sleńdziński dynasty of painters. As a gymnasium student, from 1901 to 1909 he attended the Vilnius Drawing School, and took additional private classes from Józef  Bałzukiewicz and Ivan Rybakov. In 1909–1916, he studied painting at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, and in parallel attended law lectures at the university. From 1916, Sleńdziński lived in various cities of Russia. In 1920, he returned to Vilnius and worked as a teacher. From 1923 to 1925, he travelled in Italy studying early Renaissance painting, in 1928, visited Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Turkey and Greece, and in 1930, went to Spain. From 1925 to 1940, he was a teacher of the Art Faculty of Stephen Báthory University, from 1932 – the head of its Monumental Painting Department, and from 1938 – a professor. From 1945, he lived in Poland. In his work, Sleńdziński combined the principles of Italian Renaissance painting with post-cubist stylization. He painted multi-figurative compositions and portraits, figures of classical antiquity and mythological characters. In his paintings, he sometimes used relief elements and created polychromatic wood reliefs. In 1937, he was awarded a gold medal in Paris for a relief portrait of his mother.

Reference: Académie de Vilna. VILNIUS DRAWING SCHOOL 1866–1915. Exhibition Catalogue. Compiled by dr. J. Širkaitė, Vilnius 2017, P. 352.