Peter Potworowski

Peter Potworowski (1898-1962)

The painter Tadeusz Piotr Potworowski was born in Warsaw. He studied art in Warsaw 1921, in Krakow 1922, and in Paris for several years from 1924 as a member of the Kapist group. He returned to Poland 1930. After the occupation of Poland he escaped in 1940 to Sweden via Lithuania and in 1943 made his way to Britain, eventually settling in London after war service in Scotland. Potworowski had a show of 33 of his paintings at The Redfern Gallery in January 1946 and thereafter was to exhibit regularly with Gimpel Fils, and also with The London Group to which he was elected a member in 1949. He was a professor of painting at the Bath Academy of Art in Corsham, Wiltshire 1949-1957 where he had considerable influence. During the late 1940s he worked at Wookey Hole in Somerset then took a studio at Sancreed near Penzance. He painted extensively in Cornwall and was elected to the Royal West of England Academy 1956. During the 1950s he painted frequently in Europe including France, Spain and Italy as well as in his native Poland where he was to spend the last four years of his life. In 1960 he won an award at the Venice Biennale. Potworowski’s work is held extensively in important collections in Poland, Britain and elsewhere.

The present works are from the collection of Doreen Heaton Potworowska (1930-2014) who first met Potworowski during her time as a student at Corsham in the early 1950s. Unless indicated otherwise in the description, each work is unsigned and has the provenance indicated.

Current Works

Peter Potworowski – Town Scene, Italy