Brochocki, Walery

Brochocki, Walery, Polish painter, member of the “Munich School”. From 1869: student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Presumably resident in Munich till 1877. *15.12.1847 Włocławek, †13.10.1923 Warsaw. 1857-66: at the Cadet School in Moscow. 1866-68: studies in the Warsaw drawing class/Klasa Rysunkowa under Chrystian Breslauer (1802-1882). On 12.10.1869 he enrols in the nature class at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, studies under Adolf Heinrich Lier (1826-82) and Hermann Anschütz (1802-1880). 1870-77: member of the Munich Art Club. 1877: moves to Paris. 1878: he is commissioned by the French Colonial Society to travel to Algiers to paint a panorama. 1888: moves back to Warsaw. Study trips to Podolia, Bessarabia, Lithuania, the region around Lublin and to Podlachia. Brochocki paints romanticising landscapes with groups of people in the style of Munich open-air painting. In Paris he paints landscapes under the influence of Charles-François Daubigny (1817-1878) and the Barbizon School. After returning to Poland he paints landscapes and views of villages and small towns with great sensitivity for the special characteristics of each region, in the style of realist open-air painting. He often includes small genre scenes. His works can be found in the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom/Muzeum Górnośląskie w Bytomiu, in the Leszno District Museum/Muzeum Okręgowe w Lesznie, in the National Museum in Warsaw/Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie and in the St. Gallen Art Museum.

Group exhibitions: 1870-77 Munich, Kunstverein / 1873 Vienna, World Exhibition (silver medal for a painting “Gypsy Camp”) / Warsaw, Cracow: Society of the Friends of the Fine Arts/Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Sztuk Pięknych w Krakowie

Further Reading: Halina Stępień/Maria Liczbińska: Artyści polscy w środowisku monachijskim w latach 1828-1914. Materiały źródłowe, Warsaw 1994, p. 9, 31; Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, vol. 14, Munich/Leipzig 1996, p. 295; Halina Ste̜pień: Artyści polscy w środowisku monachijskim w latach 1856-1914 (Studia z historii sztuki / Instytut Sztuki, Polska Akademia Nauk, 50), Warsaw 2003; Piotr Nowakowski: Walery Brochocki (1847-1923). Malarz ilustrator, Muzeum Ziemi Kujawskiej i Dobrzyńskiej, Włocławek 2004

Online: Matriculation data base, Matriculation book 2, Academy of Fine Arts Munich, 02519 Waleryan Brochocki, http://matrikel.adbk.de/matrikel/mb_1841-1884/jahr_1869/matrikel-02519

Encyklopedia puszczy białowieskiej, http://www.encyklopedia.puszcza-bialowieska.eu/index.php?dzial=haslo&id=886

Axel Feuß, March 2017