Rafał Marceli Ludwik Fortunat Józef Malczewski (24 October 1892 – 15 February 1965) was a Polish landscape and portrait painter, draughtsman, author and columnist.

[1] He was born in Kraków, four years after his sister, Julia, the son of Maria, née Gralewska, and her husband the celebrated Symbolist painter and professor of Fine Art, Jacek Malczewski.

In 1915 he began to travel frequently to Zakopane where he spent extensive periods, to climb, ski and paint, until the outbreak of World War II.

In October 1917 he married Bronisława Dziadosz, an English teacher four years his senior and a US citizen of Polish descent who had immigrated into Poland.

Rafał Malczewski was an associate and friend of a group of artists, musicians and intellectuals who would congregate in the Mountain resort of Zakopane in the early part of the 20th century.

In 1932 he joined the "Rhythm Association of artists (Stowarzyszenie Artystów Polskich "Rytm") and was a set designer for productions of Strindberg and Stanisław Witkiewicz at the Formistyczny Theatre in Zakopane.

[4] 1938 he donated part of his artistic output to the newly re-opened National Museum of Warsaw to which, several years earlier on account of his material difficulties, he had sold the entirety of his father's work left to him by Malczewski Sr.

In 1939 after the outbreak of World War II, having already abandoned his wife and children, he escaped over the Slovak border, with his partner Zofia Mikucka, and via Budapest and Venice made his way to Paris.

He managed to persuade the Canadian railways to sponsor him and Zofia to travel across Canada and the United States in search of artistic subjects in exchange for publicity scenery.

Despite great nostalgia for the south of the country, he resolved to remain in Canada, but his journey was described in his memoir, Wspomnieniach z Polski and serialised in the London émigré paper, Wiadomości.

[3] Solo shows followed in: As a member of the Society for the Propagation of Polish Art Abroad, he participated in the following group exhibitions: Among the many awards he received were: In his writing Rafał Malczewski evoked the atmosphere of interbellum Zakopane: