"A portrait of a woman"

In 1954, when B.J. Czedekowski was still living in Houston, United States, he created the portrait of Mary Grey Miller. The artist painted her seated, facing forward, captured from the knees up. Her well-shaped head, with carefully arranged dark hair, is turned towards the viewer. Her hazel eyes follow us, the onlookers, as if seeking eye contact. Her face expresses serenity, and her slightly smiling, parted lips, painted with a bold red lipstick, serve as the strongest colour accent. This is the face of a woman no longer young, with visible wrinkles around her eyes. Though her complexion is still smooth, the overly prominent chin and the thin line of her upper lip clearly show the passage of time. Mrs. Miller is dressed in an elaborate pink silk taffeta ball gown. The gown reveals her shoulders and neckline, over which a pink shawl, partially trimmed with black velvet, is draped. Her neck and ears are adorned with pearls. Draped over the armrest of the chair where she sits is a flat, patterned cushion, on which lies a pair of white evening gloves. The gloves are held by the woman's hands with intertwined fingers. Her left hand, with its slender fingers and nails painted the same shade of red as her lips, is particularly visible. The hand has an almost flawless skin, as does the forearm visible on the backrest and the shoulders and neckline. As if they did not match the years marked in the smallest wrinkles of "crow's feet." Her ring finger is adorned with a pearl ring, and two bracelets encircle her left wrist—one silver (or perhaps white gold?), and the other made of twisted gold and copper wires with small charms. The colour palette portraying Mrs. Miller—a range of pinks, whites, dark beige, and warm yellow hues—seems to emit light that brings the figure of the model out from the ashen blues and muted greens of the background.

Bolesław Jan Czedekowski (1885–1969) was a Polish painter born in Voinyliv, in Eastern Galicia. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and later became a student of Professor Kazimierz Pochwalski and Heinrich von Angeli, two renowned portrait painters. He opened his first studio in Vienna and was perhaps most associated with this city during his early artistic career. He also lived in Vienna during World War I, gradually gaining recognition for his portraits of aristocratic women and the wives of high-ranking officers. He exhibited his art in Vienna, Paris, Warsaw, and Kraków, though it was not initially well-received in Poland. After World War II, he immigrated to the United States. In the 1960s, he returned to Vienna, where he passed away on 8 July 1969. He was buried in Lofer, near Salzburg. Czedekowski was married twice. His first marriage, to Viennese Eugenia Nell in 1913, resulted in a daughter named Helena. As a widower, he met Hertha Aujezdecky, who became his second wife and, after the artist's death, the donor of numerous canvases collected in the Łańcut museum. A portrait of Houston mayor's wife Mary Grey Miller was donated by its last owner Deborah Troy in 2014.

Dorota Błoniarz