Study of a Boy

Study of a Boy from 1902, now in the National Museum in Kraków, extends Ślewiński's figure study practice to a younger subject — a child's face presenting different formal challenges from the adult models he more typically depicted. Children's faces, with their less defined planes and more uniformly smooth surfaces, required a different kind of observation from adult physiognomy, and Ślewiński's Synthétist approach — with its simplified forms and clear outlines — was tested by the softer, more elusive character of a child's features. The National Museum in Kraków holds an important collection of Polish modern painting alongside the Warsaw museum's larger Ślewiński holdings.

The study character of this work implies a degree of sketched immediacy — Ślewiński would have worked quickly to capture the essential character of the boy's face before the subject's inevitable restlessness disrupted the pose. The handling is likely freer and more spontaneous than his more resolved finished figure paintings.