Bronisław Wiśniewski

This Polish painter spent years sketching in Warsaw’s cafés, where doctors, poets, and shopkeepers posed for quick, honest portraits. He rarely signed his work, but one of his sitters, Dr. Feliks Sommer, looked so alive on canvas that people asked if the doctor had walked out of the frame. To see his brush at its best, look up Portrait of Dr Feliks Sommer and notice how the doctor’s collar catches the light like a snapshot, not a stiff studio pose.