Wojciech Kossak

Wojciech Kossak painted Polish military history, and above all horses. His battle scenes and cavalry pictures, full of uhlans, lancers and galloping mounts, made him one of the most popular painters in Poland.

He was born in Paris, the son of the painter Juliusz Kossak, and studied with his father, in Kraków and at the Munich Academy. He is best known as co-author of the Racławice Panorama, the vast circular painting of the 1794 battle now shown in its own rotunda in Wrocław. He worked on further panoramas and painted until the end of his long life. His son Jerzy also became a painter, and his daughters Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska and Magdalena Samozwaniec became well known writers.

In A Uhlan and a Girl and the Battle of Raszyn, look at how naturally he paints horses in motion.