Olga Boznańska (1865–1940) was born on 15 April 1865 in Kraków, the daughter of a Frenchwoman and a Pole. She received her first drawing lessons at home, from her mother, and later from Kraków painters. Because there was no art school open to women in Kraków, she went to Munich to study painting, and from Munich she moved to Paris, which was then the leading centre of art.
In Paris she lived for more than forty years and became known as one of the most original European portrait painters of her day, a painter of mood and mystery whom critics called the “painter of souls”. Her portraits, interiors and still lifes are painted in soft, muted greys with a delicately veiled brushstroke. Among her best-known works are Girl with Chrysanthemums (1894), In the Conservatory and Grandmother’s Name-Day.
In her last years Boznańska lived alone in difficult circumstances in her Paris studio. She died in Paris on 26 October 1940, the day after she was taken to hospital.