The latest specimen of period pornokitsch to arrive on my otherwise blameless Facebook page is this, painted by one Edward Okun, bizarrely described by Wikipedia as a 'Polish art nouveau painter and freemason' (he was also a racing cyclist). The picture above is titled 'Self-Portrait with Sicilian Pomegranates' (ignoring its other eye-catching features).
Okun was a prominent figure in the Polish art scene, vice-president of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. It was in that capacity that he happened to witness the assassination of the first president of Poland, Gabriel Narutowicz, and helped to apprehend his assassin.
His style of Art Nouveau was decidedly Polish and somewhat – what shall we say – overheated. He seems to have been particularly (and understandably) fascinated by the patterned wings of butterflies and moths, as in this self-portrait (with his wife again) titled 'The War and Us' –
and in this weird picture, 'Night Butterflies' –
Okun lived in Warsaw during the Second World War, but after the Warsaw Uprising he moved out of the city to Skierniewice, where he was killed by a stray bullet in January 1945.
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