Background
She was born in 1885 in Estonia to well-known physician Tadeusz Dembowski and his wife Matylda. She grew up in Lithuania and Poland studying under various painters.
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Zofia Romer
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Education
In Lithuania, she studied painting first under Trutniev in Vilnius and subsequently under Roth and Holoszy in Krakow, Poland and Munich, Germany. In 1903 and 1904, she continued her studies in Paris with the well known portrait painter Jacques-Émile Blanche and the historical painter Luc-Olivier Merson. She completed her formal artistic education back in Krakow with Józef Siedlecki at the Baraniecki Museum.
Career
As a young woman she was romantically linked with Bronisław Malinowski and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. Mistress Romer played a significant role in the artistic heritage of Lithuania. During a prolific artistic career spanning almost 70 years and encompassing a variety of media, she produced about 5000 works, of which at least 1200 are catalogued.
From 1943 onward she earned her living as a portrait painter.
She had 5 children Zofia, (who had 3 children. Jas, Stas, and Anna Hempel) Roch Edward, (who had 6 children: Kristina, Maia, George, Thaddeus, Marika and Mark), Eugenia, (whose only child perished during World World War II) Andrzej Tadeusz (who had 3 children.
January Edward, Anna Louise, and Marisha Helena) and Hela. As a result of her displacement from her home during World World War II, in the second half of her life she lived and created in such diverse places as the Russian Federation, Tehran, Cairo, London, the United States, and Montreal, Canada, where she died in 1972.
Her work hangs in the collections of many museums in Eastern Europe including the State Museums of Kaunas, Siauliai, Telsiai, Kelme, and Vilnius, and the National Museum in Warsaw, as well as numerous private collections all over the world.
In 1992 a catalogue of her known work was published in connection with a multiple museums exhibition of her work.
