Michał Maksymilian Rekucki (1884 Nowy targ - 1971 Kraków), Young Highlander Woman at the Window

Biography
Born in Nowy Targ, the Polish painter served one year in the Austrian army after graduating from high school. He began studies at the Faculty of Construction at the Lviv Polytechnic, but interrupted them after a year to go to Cracow and simultaneously study at the Academy of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Philosophy at Jagiellonian University. He trained in the studios of Jozef Mehoffer and Wojciech Weiss. After completing his studies in 1912, he embarked on a tour of Europe but returned to Poland after the outbreak of World War I. As a soldier in the Austrian army, he ended up in Russian captivity and was deported to Siberia from where he got out after seven years. In 1921 he left for the United States where he earned money by painting portraits of clergy and factory families. He had strong ties to his homeland, and was an active member of the Polish Highlanders Association and one of the founders of the Polish-American Tatra Society. After the start of World War II, he returned to the United States and took up portraits of Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Władysław Sikorski, among others. He died in Cracow where he settled before in 1959.