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Matejko's Kraków

In 1887 Jan Matejko, Poland's great painter of its history, was head of Kraków's art school. Two of his students, born the same year, helped him decorate St Mary's Basilica, then left together for Paris, shared a studio and kept drawing each other. This is their Kraków, seen by the teacher and by each of the two friends.

Sources: Wikipedia: Stanisław WyspiańskiNational Museum in KrakówWikipedia: St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków

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Jan Matejko grew up in Kraków and as a boy saw the city's last independence ended by revolution and siege in 1846–48. By 1862 he was 24, back from study in Munich, and working in a studio in his family's house on Floriańska Street, still waiting for his first real success.

Sources: WikipediaGetty ULAN

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Stanisław Wyspiański grew up at the foot of Wawel Hill, where his father kept a sculptor's studio, and was raised by an aunt whose house Matejko often visited. In August 1894, after years of travel and study in Paris, he came home to Kraków.

Sources: WikipediaNational Museum in Kraków

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The artists knew each other

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In Paris, Wyspiański shared a studio with a fellow student from Kraków, born the same year, and the two drew and painted each other at every moment. In 1897 both helped found Sztuka, a society of Kraków artists set on a modern Polish art.

Sources: National Museum in KrakówWikipedia

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Connected

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In the autumn of 1907 Józef Mehoffer bought an eighteenth-century larch-wood manor house in the village of Jankówka, near Kraków. Its garden inspired both his intimate pictures and his large designs for murals and stained glass.

Sources: Dzieje.plWikipedia

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The artist, painted

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