“Portrait of Irena Śliwa”

Portrait of a woman sitting in an armchair with a yellow rose in her hand.

Marian Stroński, “Portrait of Irena Śliwa,” circa 1960, oil paints on fiberboard. The painting measures 95 x 75 centimeters. Collection of the National Museum of the Przemyśl Region in Przemyśl. The painting depicts a realistic portrait of a woman seated in an interior. In the foreground, a woman of about forty sits in an armchair. She is shown knee-high. She is turned slightly sideways, to the left. Her face is straight ahead. She is wearing a gray knee-length skirt and a blue button-up sweater. Under the sweater, she wears a pink blouse with a collar. The blouse is buttoned at the neck with a silver, oval brooch with a coral center. The woman holds the armrest of the armchair with her right hand. Her left hand is placed on her lap, holding a yellow rose. This rose is an attribute of women. Irena Śliwa was an amateur painter from Przemyśl. She painted landscapes and views of Przemyśl. However, her favorite motif was flowers. That’s why Marian Stroński portrayed her holding a flower in her hand. The woman has a clear, calm face and gray-blue eyes. She wears large, round blue earrings or clips in her ears. She has dark brown hair, which she has styled into a sleek, parted hairstyle and pinned back at the back of her head. To the right of the woman’s face, on the back of an armchair, is a red flower against a blue background. It’s the armchair’s upholstery or some fabric hanging on the furniture. Marian Stroński greatly enjoyed using colorful materials and carpets as decoration for the portraits he painted. The background in “Portrait of Irena Śliwa” is not smooth. Behind the woman, on the left, the artist painted a painting of the Virgin Mary and Child. It is faint, as if blurred and hidden in shadow. This is decoration, or perhaps Irena Śliwa’s dream of a child, illustrated by the painter. Irena Śliwa, called “Przemyśl’s flower painter.” She was born in 1923 and died in 2012 in Przemyśl, where she lived and worked throughout her life. She was a co-founder of the Club of Non-Professional Visual Artists.