Jan Feliks Piwarski

Jan Feliks Piwarski was a Polish painter, curator, writer and graphic artist; one of the earliest lithographers in Poland.

Biography

He was born in Puławy. He came from a family of craftsmen and studied painting with Józef Richter. In 1816, he moved to Warsaw, where he took employment as a clerk for the . Two years later, he was appointed as curator of the print collection at the University of Warsaw and, shortly thereafter, became Secretary of the University Library. He would hold both of these positions until the University was closed by the Russian authorities in 1832.

In 1819, he travelled to Vienna as an advisor for the . While there, he studied graphic techniques at the Imperial print collection with Adam von Bartsch. After returning, he worked to enlarge and organize the University's collection and wrote several articles on art and history for the Gazetą Literacką. From 1820 to 1830, he worked with the as artistic director for their Monumenta Regnum Poloniae Cracoviensis.
Together with, he worked to promote a new lithographic technology; the zincograph. In 1825, he took a trip to Berlin and Dresden to study new methods of museum curating. Following the failure of the November Uprising and the closing of the University, he oversaw the liquidation of the University's art and book collections; organizing the materials and preparing them for shipment to Saint Petersburg.
During the next decade, he wrote several works on art and art education, including Wzory i nauka rysunków, published in 1840 and reprinted several times. He also taught at an academy for young ladies and a private art school operated by Aleksander Kokular.
Later, he took an active role in helping to establish the . When it opened in 1844, he was given the chair of drawing and landscape painting, which he held until his retirement in 1848. He is credited with introducing the practice of painting en plein air.
His oil paintings were largely composed of landscapes and genre scenes, with a few works depicting events of the November Uprising. Among his best-known students were Wojciech Gerson, Franciszek Kostrzewski, Henryk Pillati, Józef Simmler and Józef Szermentowski. His son, Adolf, was a well-known miniaturist.
Piwarski died in 1859, in Warsaw.