Watercolor on paper, signed, dated, and inscribed in the lower left corner: “Grudziądz 934 Janusz Witwicki.”
Dimensions in frame: 72x58 cm (63x50 cm)
Janusz Witwicki, born Jan Ludwik Witwicki (Lviv 1903–1946 Lviv)—Polish engineer, architect, and art historian, creator of the “Artistic Panorama of Old Lviv.” From 1909 to 1913, he attended an Evangelical elementary school in Lviv. From 1913 to 1921, he attended the Tadeusz Kościuszko VII State Gymnasium in Lviv, passing his high school graduation exam on June 4, 1921. In 1920, he took part in the Polish–Bolshevik War. From 1921 to 1926, he studied at the Faculty of Architecture at the Lviv Polytechnic. From 1924 to 1925, he worked at the Conservation Office in Lviv. In 1926, he received his degree in architectural engineering. Beginning in 1927, he studied art history at Jan Kazimierz University, and in 1931 he began further studies in Paris and Rome. From 1924 to 1934, he ran his own architectural practice, designing a number of public and religious buildings, including the completed design for Lviv’s pavilion at the General National Exhibition in Poznań in 1929. In 1929, he began his initial work on the Artistic Panorama of Old Lviv. From 1934 to 1944, he worked as an assistant and later as an adjunct professor in the Department of Historical Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of the Lviv Polytechnic. From 1932 to 1946, he worked on the Panorama, a process interrupted by his arrest on three separate occasions by the Soviet and German occupiers.
