Actaeon Devoured by his Hounds

Janina Baranowska’s 'Actaeon Devoured by his Hounds', from the artist's earlier period, is the first work by a Polish refugee artist who arrived in Britain via the so-called ‘Anders’ Army, to enter the Collection. Marked by a rich, deep palette and layered impasto, it echoes the expressionist style of both her first teacher, David Bomberg, at Borough Road in the early 1950s, and fellow pole Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, her subsequent teacher at the University of Stefan Batory in London. It recounts the tale from Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ of the unfortunate fate of the young hunter Actaeon, a grandson of Cadmus, who, after encountering the chaste Artemis (known to the Romans as Diana, goddess of the hunt), is torn apart by his own hounds.