Teodor Marian Talowski
Polish, 1857 - 1910
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Teodor Marian Talowski was a Polish architect and painter. Because of his style, which combined late Historicism with Art Nouveau and Modernist influences, he has been described as "the Polish Gaudi". His works include apartment buildings, churches, chapels and public buildings in Kraków, Lviv and other cities throughout former Austrian Galicia.
Talowski was born in Zassów (now Zasów) near Tarnów, in Austrian Galicia, and attended a gymnasium in Kraków. Later he moved to Vienna, where he studied architecture under Karl König. After two years he moved to Lviv (Polish: Lwów, German: Lemberg), to study under Julian Zachariewicz at Lviv Polytechnic, from which he graduated in 1881. He came back to Kraków to be a professor at the Higher School of Technology and Industry (Polish: Wyższa Szkoła Techniczo-Przemysłowa). In 1901 he was appointed the chair of the Department of Drawing and later the Department of Medieval Architecture Composition at Lviv Polytechnic.
Throughout his whole professional life, Talowski worked mainly in Galicia, designing public utility buildings as well as private houses. The works of Talowski are set in eclecticism, showing strong connections with historicism and Art Nouveau.
He died prematurely in 1910 in Lviv after five years of poor health and was interred at the Rakowicki Cemetery in Kraków.