The Society of Polish Artists "Sztuka" founded in 1897 in Kraków, was a gathering of prominent Polish visual artists from around the turn of the century living under the foreign partitions of Poland. Its main goal was to reaffirm the importance and unique character of Polish contemporary art at a time, when Poland could not exist as sovereign nation.

Leon Jan Wyczółkowski was one of the leading painters of the Young Poland movement, as well as the principal representative of Polish Realism in art of the Interbellum. From 1895 to 1911 he served as professor of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts (ASP) in Kraków, and from 1934, ASP in Warsaw. He was a founding member of the Society of Polish Artists "Sztuka".