Albert Lipczinski was born in Lębork, Germany (now Poland) in 1876. He arrived in Liverpool, England in 1897 and studied at the University of Liverpool’s Art Sheds. Espousing a bohemian life, Lipczinski's paintings are contextualised by the radical socialist politics with which he was involved.
Painter and portraitist Albert Lipczinski was born in Lębork, Germany (now Poland) on 20 December 1876. He studied painting under Adolf Männchen at the Königliche Provinsial Kunstgewerbeschule in Gdańsk, his art education 'mainly concentrated on graphic skills, and the attention to the depiction of human form in life studies’. His studies were interrupted by his national service in the German army, and, following an ‘incident on the parade ground’, he fled the military, eventually ‘escaping to form a new life for himself’ in Liverpool, England in 1897 (Bingham, 2015).
In England, Lipczinski studied briefly at Liverpool University’s famous Art Sheds under the Welsh artist, Augustus John, who was gaining national repute. There Lipczinski began a relationship with John’s model, Elizabeth Milne, whom he subsequently married. Together, the couple ‘grew to be involved within a small but vigorous artistic and academic community in Liverpool, pursuing an infectious sense of freedom with others from social and political constraints of the time’ (Bingham, 2015). They established their own bohemian residence on the top floor of a disused school building, which they called the Schloss (‘Castle’ in German). Many University professors, politicians, union leaders, artists, and friends visited their home. ‘It was a stimulating cultural milieu, which dissolved class divisions and statuses, all gathering in a run-down location, which perplexed the police who observed this strange mix’ (Bingham, 2015). Lipczinski escaped the industrialised city on regular trips to John’s rural cottage in North Wales where he met the Welsh painter James Dickson Innes and was exposed to a very localised and specific version of Post-Impressionism.
Lipczinski was heavily involved in cultural and political events in Liverpool and beyond, much of which is reflected in his art. He was a visitor to the International Club in Liverpool, which was concerned with anarchistic forms of adult education and trade unionism. He also made a variety of socialist contacts, including trade unionists, Tom Mann and Jim Larkin, both of whose portraits he painted. Amid the mass-labour uprising during the transport strike in summer 1911, Lipczinski’s works were exhibited in a ground-breaking post-impressionist show, Sandon Studios Society: Exhibition of Modern Art Including Works by the Post-Impressionists, alongside works by Picasso, Matisse, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Van Gogh. Originally presented by art critic Roger Fry in his famous Manet and the Post-Impressionists show at London’s Grafton Galleries in 1910, the Liverpool exhibition was altered to include artworks by the Sandon Studios Society, a group of Liverpudlian artists, of which Lipczinski was a member. It was the first time such works were shown in England outside London (Bingham, 2011; Bisson, 1965). In 1912, Lipczinski had his first solo exhibition at the Citizen’s Theatre (now the Playhouse) on Williamson Square, Liverpool.
Between 1913 and 1915 Lipczinski was commissioned to paint a group portrait of the University of Liverpool’s University Club, which featured many Art Sheds' members and teachers (including John). Entitled The New Testament Group, the work depicted Professor John Macdonald Mackay addressing a group of influential academics. It was particularly important in documenting the discussion group as ‘a driving force in the University’ as well as helping ‘us to recognise the part played by Mackay in conceiving the Faculty of Arts and, indeed, in shaping the character of the whole University’ (Hair, 1996). The painting was displayed in the Faculty before eventually being moved to the Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool.
With the outbreak of the First World War, Lipczinski found that, due to ‘a society fearful of Germanic voices and the suspicion of perceived threat’, his artistic prospects changed, along with his freedoms (Bingham, 2015). As an immigrant he was treated differently to his English socialist peers, leading him to being detained twice: first in Chester for a week (after which he remained under house arrest for the duration of the war) and, after climbing up the clock tower above his home to ring the bell to celebrate Armistice Day in 1918, a second time in a camp for ‘enemy aliens’ at Knockoloe on the Isle of Man. After two years in detention, and realising he was unable to stay due in Britain due to hostility, Lipczinski and his wife resettled in Zoppot, part of the Free City of Danzig (now Sopot, Poland), where they lived the remainder of their lives. There he encountered the rise of Nazism and did not find the kind of communality of artists he had had in Liverpool (Bingham, 2015). Albert Lipczinski died in a small flat in Sopot, Poland in 1974. A retrospective, Albert Lipczinski 1876-1974, was held posthumously at the Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead in 2011. His works are held in UK public collections including the Victoria Gallery & Museum, Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.