Ewa z Rościszewskich Lorentowiczowa (1869–1943)

This article discusses the life and work of Ewa Rościszewska‑Lorentowiczowa, painter and book‑binder, and her relationship with her daughter, painter and stage‑designer Irena Lorentowicz. Rościszewska came from a traditional, gentry family, impoverished after the January Uprising. Although initially, like many girls in her world, she was meant to become a governess or teacher, she decided to take up an artistic training. She studied painting in Warsaw and Paris. At the same time, she started to work as a book‑binder. She did not give up her artistic career after her marriage to the celebrated writer Jan Lorentowicz (1903) or after the birth of her daughter (1904). I analyze the creative personality of Rościszewska‑Lorentowicz, her oeuvre as well as texts relating to her, especially those pertaining to family life. In the biographies of women artists, there is often information about the negative influence of the subject’s mother. If the artists themselves became mothers, they have been seen as cold, neurotic, putting art and their own careers first, to the detriment of children. The relationship between Ewa Rościszewska‑Lorentowicz and Irena Lorentowicz has been described in this way. I point out the stereotypical nature of these beliefs and the much more complex nature of the relationship between the two artists, mother and daughter.