Piotr Tadeusz Potworowski (14 June 1898 – 24 April 1962) was a Polish abstract and figurative painter who lived and exhibited in Paris, Poland, Sweden and England.
During his seven years in Paris he became personally acquainted with Pablo Picasso, Pierre Bonnard, Jean Cocteau, Constantin Brâncuși and attended for a short time Fernand Léger's studio.
His much-needed European influence on painting, specifically abstraction, was acknowledged by contemporaries including Peter Lanyon, Patrick Heron, Adrian Heath and William Scott.
In 1996 a major retrospective exhibition was held at the Polish National Gallery of Contemporary Art in Warsaw consisting of 70 works in oil and 80 sculptures, scenography projects and watercolours.
His sketches from that period show interest and talent which was put aside when he volunteered for the Polish Cavalry Brigade, part of the Russian Army, fighting first the Germans then the Ukrainians and finally the Bolsheviks.
In 1924 he travelled to Paris as a member of Komitet Paryski (KP), a group of young painters, and stayed there for seven years immersing himself in avant garde culture of that period.
[9] A number of exhibitions in London led to a position in the Bath Academy of Art, Corsham, where he significantly influenced the creative thinking of a new wave of British painters such as Peter Lanyon, William Scott, and Patrick Heron.
Once or twice in a lifetime at just the right moment — somebody else can move into one's own small private world endowed with mysterious authority to push and pull in directions that, without such encouragement, one might only slowly (or even never) take necessary and positive action.