Adam Styka

(Polish, 1890-1959)

A negotiation

Footnotes

Adam Styka was born in Poland into an artistic family, his father, Jan Styka, being a prominent Polish painter of grand historical, religious, and military subjects. Although his father wished him to be an architect, Styka persuaded him to allow his study at the Ècole des Beaux Arts, Paris. He exhibited his first paintings at the Grand Palais des Champs Elysées in 1911.

Taking advantage of the freedom to travel through French territories in North Africa, Styka was greatly influenced by the region, and it is here that he would turn to the Orientalist subjects for which he is best known. In 1913, he exhibited his first paintings of North African subjects, specifically of Algerian and Tunisian sun-drenched people and landscapes. This caused such as sensation that he was proclaimed as the 'Painter of the Sun' because his canvases looked as though they had been 'dipped in light.'

The present lot epitomises Styka's Orientalist painting. Here we see a group of men crowded around the negotiation taking place over the sale of a richly decorated carpet. The sun combines with the red earth and sand of the surrounding landscape to imbue the canvas with a rich rose gold light. Here, we can see both his interest in the human subjects of Orientalist painting, but also his great love for the landscape of North Africa.