1888-1948

Theme/Style – California Regionalism, Western landscapes, still lifes, portraits

Media – Oils

Artistic Focus – Born to wealth in Krakow, Poland, Stanislaus Poray was the son of Count Michael Poray, an established landscape painter. First recognized for his Western landscapes, Poray later focused his attention on still lifes, often calling upon his knowledge of ancient Chinese culture, philosophy and art to inform his work. Some of his Regionalist works evoked the themes and styles of Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood.

Career Highlights –

• He studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow as well as in Paris.
• Poray began his professional career in Russia, where he was art director of the First Art Theater in Tomsk.
• With the onset of the Russian Revolution in 1918, he traveled through China to the United States. In 1921, he arrived in Los Angeles, where he resided for the remainder of his life.
• Often exhibited during his lifetime at the prestigious Grand Central Art Galleries of New York, Poray’s paintings are included in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles’ Commercial and Jonathan Clubs, Radcliffe College, the Detroit Institute of Art, and the Fogg Museum at Harvard University.

Additional biographical material and full bibliographic references are available upon request.

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