Boleslas Biegas 1877-1954

Boleslas Biegas (born Biegalski) was a Symbolist painter and sculptor, as well as a writer and playwright. He was born in 1877 in Koziczyn, near Warsaw in Poland, and died in Paris in 1954. His childhood was marked by the loss of his parents and his brother, an experience that shaped a deeply introspective and morbid temperament.

Hailed as a “new Giotto” - and like Giotto, having worked as a shepherd in his youth - Biegas was able to pursue his studies thanks to the generosity of his patrons, the Trutschel family. His strong individualism, however, led to his expulsion from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. He later became associated with the Vienna Secession before settling in Paris, where he established his studio on the rue de Bagneux.

His sculpture, primitive in appearance and monolithic or totemic in form, is animated by expressive movement and sinuous lines of great virtuosity. This can be seen in works such as the Monument to Chopin and the Sphinx of 1902, now in the Musée d’Orsay - a plaster relief with pared-down, mysterious curves, as if inhabited by a primordial voice. An artist of dark and spiritual imagery, Biegas was deeply drawn to the theme of the Sphinx, which he viewed as an existential enigma, and his work is infused with cosmological and philosophical symbolism.

In his painting, he developed a so-called “spherist” technique, used in numerous portraits, which attracted few followers, apart perhaps from certain Futurist artists.

His artistic cycles are numerous and include:

Mysterious Castles (Châteaux mystérieux)
Infinite Mysticism (La mystique infinie)
Blue Paintings (Tableaux bleus)
The Vampires of War (Les Vampires de guerre)

His later works evoke fairy-tale palaces bathed in light, nocturnal apparitions, and other mystical, dreamlike visions of infinity - imagery that at times suggests Hollywood or the music hall more than the depths of the human soul.

The Boleslas Biegas Museum in Paris houses a significant portion of his work.