Self - Portrait

Ženíšek painted several self-portraits; the one on view was done shortly after he was appointed professor at the newly founded School of Arts and Crafts in Prague. In the collections of the National Gallery in Prague is also a smaller self-portrait in oil painted about 1880. Ženíšek was a remarkable portraitist, also excelling in drawings and paintings of historical and allegorical motifs; moreover, he was a leading author of the monumental paintings for the National Theatre. In the 1890s he joined as professor the Prague Arts Academy; his colleagues at the Academy were the painters Václav Brožík and Vojtěch Hynais and the sculptor Josef Václav Myslbek.