Tadeusz Żukotyński

Who was Tadeusz Żukotyński?

Polish count, professor, and painter Tadeusz Żukotyński was born in what is today the region of Podolia in Ukraine. One of Europe's foremost painters in religious subjects. A pupil of Pilatti and a student of Jan Matejko, Żukotyński studied at the Academy of Arts in Munich, Germany, where he was recognized with the highest prize awarded by the academy, a silver medal, as well as two bronze medals.

At the urging of his mother, he donated his first work, a small picture of the Blessed Virgin, to a poor church in Milwaukee. Shortly after he arrived in America, Żukotyński entered a church in Milwaukee and found his own Madonna in a place of honor. He opened a studio in Milwaukee at once, and went on to create more than 100 paintings and murals for churches around the United States, five of which hang above the altars in Mary of the Angels Chapel, with an additional three paintings in the Adoration Chapel.

His works can be found in other areas of Wisconsin, where Żukotyński painted the St. Francis of Assisi altar in the Maria Angelorum Chapel of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration at St. Rose of Viterbo Convent in La Crosse, Wisconsin. An oil-on-canvas painting located immediately above the altar in Mary of the Angels Chapel, it depicts St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan Order, showing Francis at prayer in the Little Chapel of Portiuncula, surrounded by visions of Jesus, Mary and angelic hosts.