I. Pieńkowski like Wł. Ostrowski and A. Gawiński gained his artistic education in the drawing class of W. Gerson in Warsaw (1892-5), and then in the years 1895-8 in the Academy of Fine Arts under the direction of T. Axentowicz and L. Wyczółkowski. Presumably also studied at the school of S. Grocholski in Munich in 1898, to later in the year to move to the Akadémie Julian in Paris, and in 1900 to Rome. Returning permanently to Kraków, he was associated both with the local Academy, where since 1918 he lectured painting, and the environment of Warsaw "Chimera" and the local SSP as a professor since 1909, work and participation in exhibitions organized by Lvov, Krakow and Poznan TPSP and TZSP in Warsaw interrupted artistic journeys to France, Italy and Brazil.
Portrait, next to landscape and generic painting and still life, was often the subjects undertaken by Pienkowski. The girl at the window is one of his earliest works, painted at the end of study in Kraków. It reflects not only fashionable at end of the century interest in folklore, but also the impact of L. Wyczółkowski painting, fascinated by the problems of light and color close to French Impressionism. The figure of pensive girl put into context with a luminous background window is also not free from the symbolic subtext.
[dr E.Leszczyńska]
