Bolesław Biegas

Bolesław Biegas is an artist born on 1877 in Koziczyn near Ciechanów, died in 1954 in Paris. Polish sculptor, painter, writer and playwright. He was born in a poor peasant family, he lost both parents early. As an orphan, he worked on grazing cattle and a carpenter and woodcarver's assistant. His sculpting skills were discovered by priest Aleksander Rzewnicki, who directed the boy to the church sculpture workshop of Antoni Panasiuk. Further education over the boy's education was taken over by Franciszek Rajkowski, who sent the little artist to school and showed his first works to Aleksander Świętochowski. With his help Biegas presented his sculptures at the first exhibition that took place in Wende's bookstore in Warsaw.

In the years 1897-1901 Biegas studied at the School of Fine Arts in Krakow under the tutelage of Alfred Daun, then Konstanty Laszczka. He gradually changed his style to modern, geometric and simplified. Under the influence of Stanisław Przybyszewski, he created symbolic and decadent sculptures: because of the scandalous work "Book of Life" he was removed from the list of students in 1901. In the same year he took part in the 10th Vienna Secession Exhibition, and thanks to the scholarship of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts he went to Paris, where he met his patrons - Henryk and Jadwiga Trütscheli. He exhibited his works at art salons and individual exhibitions in Paris, London, St. Petersburg, and Kiev. These events were commented on by great art critics, including Guillaume Apollinaire and Louis Vauxcelles.

In addition to his early works in the geometrical and Art Nouveau trends, Biegas also worked on portrait sculptures depicting Wagner, Chopin, Słowacki and Mickiewicz. He also created two-sided sculptures that connected two figures. From 1910, he became interested in acts and anatomy, and after the war his attention was drawn to cubism.

He was also the creator of symbolic, fantastic images referring to the political situation in Europe and Poland, but the works from the early period were mostly not preserved.

From 1901 he lived in Paris, where he died in 1954.