Boleslaw Jan Czedekowski (Polish, 1885-1969) was a celebrated Polish artist, who spent the vast majority of his life living abroad. Maintaining studios in Paris and Vienna, Czedekowski would spend a long career portraying high society on both sides of the Atlantic.
The period after the First World War, saw Czedekowski gain prominence as a portrait painter. In 1920, he and his family would move to the US, where a short but successful spell, announced himself to fashionable society on that side of the Atlantic. Returning to Europe a few years later, he would continue portraying high society from his studios in Paris and Vienna. In 1923, he visited an independent Poland for the first time.
In Warsaw at the outbreak of the Second World War, Czedekowski fled to Vienna, where he observed the occupation of Poland from afar. He was stirred profoundly by the horrors of War and produced a series of paintings entitled "The War in Poland." His portrait of General George S. Patton, Jr., painted at the end of the War, now hangs in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.
Czedekowski emigrated to the USA in 1946, experiencing some of his most successful years. He would exhibit frequently across numerous states, becoming an American Citizen in 1952.
Jan Bolesław Czedekowski died in Vienna on 8 July 1969. He was buried next to his first wife at their holiday home in Lofer, Salzburg.
