Portrait of a girl in a red beret

Maurycy Trębacz, a Polish painter and draftsman of Jewish descent, was born on May 3, 1861, in Warsaw, into a Jewish family. His father, Dawid, was a house painter, and his brother, Bernard, also pursued a career in painting. Trębacz's artistic journey began under the tutelage of Wojciech Gerson and Aleksander Kamiński in Warsaw. With the financial support of lawyer Stanisław Rotwand and the endorsement of Leopold Horowitz, he secured a two-year scholarship from the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts. This enabled him to study at the School of Fine Arts in Kraków under Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with A. Wagner and F. Seitz from 1882 to 1884. His academic efforts were rewarded with a silver medal for his painting 'From Martyrdom,' an academic study for the lost canvas 'The Good Samaritan.' Trębacz's career was marked by periods of study and work across Europe, including Paris and Munich, alongside Samuel Hirszenberg. His painting 'The Convalescent,' exhibited at the Universal Exhibition in Paris, earned him a bronze medal. Despite his talents, Trębacz faced challenges in gaining widespread recognition, as evidenced by the modest success of his 1903 solo exhibition in Łódź. Nevertheless, he continued to produce portraits on commission and participated in various collective and individual exhibitions. Trębacz's connection with Łódź deepened over time, leading him to settle there around 1909, where he remained a notable figure in the local art scene until his death on January 29, 1941.