Alfred Jan Maksymilian Kowalski
Suwałki, 11 October 1849 – Munich, 16 February 1915
Alfred von Wierusz-Kowalski was a Polish painter and one of the leading representatives of the Munich School.
He was born in Suwałki, a town in north-eastern Poland, to the notary Teofil Kowalski and Teofilia Siewierska. He spent part of his childhood between Suwałki and the family’s small rural estate in Dębszczyzna, near Filipów, in the Suwałki region. After the family moved to Kalisz, in central Poland, Kowalski attended the state classical gymnasium, where he received his first artistic training. Between 1868 and 1871 he studied drawing in Warsaw under Rafał Hadziewicz, Aleksander Kamiński, and Wojciech Gerson, and subsequently continued his studies in Prague and Dresden.
In 1876 he settled permanently in Munich, then one of Europe’s most important artistic centres. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts for one year, studying under Józef Brandt and Alexander von Wagner. He soon opened his own studio and achieved considerable success among Munich art dealers and collectors. In recognition of his artistic standing, he was appointed honorary professor at the Academy in 1890.
Together with Józef Brandt, Wierusz-Kowalski became one of the most popular Polish painters active in Munich. His works were regularly exhibited at major international exhibitions, received numerous awards, and were eagerly sought after on the German and American art markets.
His oeuvre includes landscapes, genre scenes, and historical subjects. Following a journey to Africa in 1903, he also introduced exotic themes into his work. Among his best-known paintings is The Lone Wolf, which enjoyed particular popularity in the United States. In Poland, his work was long known primarily through reproductions in periodicals, although he exhibited regularly at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, where two retrospective exhibitions were held in 1908 and 1935.
Wierusz-Kowalski died in Munich in 1915. He was initially buried at the Waldfriedhof, the city’s “forest cemetery,” and was later reinterred at Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.
For a time, paintings signed with the pseudonym “J. Konarski” were attributed to Alfred von Wierusz-Kowalski due to their characteristic composition and brushwork. More recently, however, it has been assumed that “J. Konarski” is a pseudonym of the painter Franciszek Bujakiewicz (1856–1918).
