Henryka Beyer

Henryka Beyer was a German painter active in Poland. She was the youngest sister of Wilhelm [Henryk Minter], an architect.

Life and career

Born in Szczecin, Beyer was initially taught by local painter Petera Schmidta. In 1805, she moved to Berlin with her brother Charles Frederick and studied under the Director of the KPM, Gottfried Wilhelm Volker.
In 1811, Beyer moved to Warsaw, where she was trained by Antoni Brodowski. In 1813, she married the director of the Warsaw lottery John Gottlieb Wilhelm Beyer, converting from the Lutheran faith to Calvinism. They had three sons; the youngest, Charles Adolf, was born in 1818. Widowed the next year in 1819, Beyer had to maintain her sons and in 1824 in Warsaw opened a school of painting and drawing for women. She ran it until 1835. She painted still lifes, mostly watercolors, usually in dark warm colors. Beyer initialed her works HKA.
She died in 1855 in Chrzanów near Warsaw and is buried in the cemetery next to the children of Calvinist in Warsaw.
The poet Stanisław Jachowicz honored her memory with the following lines for her obituary:

Prosta jak kwiatek, co go malowała/W niebiańskie strojny klejnoty,/Prawda w jej słowie, a w czynach jej – chwała,/W życiu zachęta do cnoty.