A compelling biography of the Polish painter and writer Józef Czapski that takes readers to Paris in the Roaring Twenties, to the front lines during WWII, and into the late 20th-century art world. Józef Czapski (1896–1993) lived many lives during his ninety-six years. He was a student in Saint Petersburg during the Russian Revolution and a painter in Paris in the roaring twenties. As a Polish reserve officer fighting against the invading Nazis in the opening weeks of the Second World War, he was taken prisoner by the Soviets. For reasons unknown to this day, he was one of the very few excluded from Stalin’s sanctioned massacres of Polish officers. He never returned to Poland after the war, but worked tirelessly in Paris to keep alive awareness of the plight of his homeland, overrun by totalitarian powers. Czapski was a towering public figure, but painting gave meaning to his life. Eric Karpeles, also a painter, reveals Czapski’s full complexity, pulling together all the threads of this remarkable life.

This thoughtful and engaging monograph finally gives a remarkable artist who bore witness to the twentieth century his due. “Mr. Karpeles, a California-based painter and art critic, has ignited international interest in Czapski’s artwork.” —Wall Street Journal This stunning monograph, a long-overdue critical appraisal of Polish artist Jo´zef Czapski arrives at a moment when the artist’s legacy is gaining new recognition. Within these pages, author Eric Karpeles conveys how making art was so enmeshed with Czapski’s way of seeing and being in the world that it was second nature. Given that he lived into his ninety-seventh year, it’s no surprise that the artist has works dating from every decade of the twentieth century but the first. As witness to the tumultuous events of that century, he found in painting “a refuge and a salvation.” Prolific as a painter, he was equally disciplined in recording the events of his life in pencil, ink, and watercolor in his journals. At a time when abstract art tended to dominate aesthetic discourse, he preferred to observe the world around him, to portray people going about their daily business. Some of his most compelling works depict theatergoers and art lovers doing what they do best—looking.