Józef Pankiewicz

In 1889 two young Polish painters travelled to Paris for the great Exposition Universelle, the world's fair that raised the Eiffel Tower. Józef Pankiewicz and his studio partner Władysław Podkowiński saw the Impressionists' loosened brushwork and bright, broken colour, and it changed how they wanted to paint. When Pankiewicz came home the following year and showed the results in Warsaw, Polish critics, used to dark historical canvases, did not know what to make of them. He is remembered today as one of the painters who carried Impressionism into Polish art.

Pankiewicz never stood still. He passed through a phase of silvery night scenes in the manner of the American painter Whistler, then, drawn back to France again and again along the Mediterranean, fell under the spell of Paul Cézanne and began building his landscapes from firm blocks of colour. He became a close friend of the French painter Pierre Bonnard.

His largest mark, though, was as a teacher. From 1925 he ran the Kraków Academy's own branch in Paris, and around him gathered a group of young Polish colourists later known as the Kapists. Among those who passed through his orbit were the painters Józef Czapski and Moïse Kisling.

He spent his last years in the south of France and died at La Ciotat, near Marseille, in the summer of 1940, weeks after the German army marched into Paris.