Kazimiers Cykowski was a Polish landscape painter. Born in 1896 he studied in Warsaw at the W. Gerson Drawing School, later at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow under Jacek Malczewski, in Dubrovnik (with A. Hamen), and from 1922 in Paris at the Shuchaev School and the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere. He left Paris for Morocco (1926); he exhibited works from this trip at the renowned Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1927 and Galerie Baneiro. In France, he belonged to the Union of Polish Artists and was its secretary for two years. A retrospective exhibition of his work took place in 1931 at the Czesław Garliński Art Salon in Warsaw. He survived World War II in Yugoslavia, where in 1946-1948 he ran the Polish Information Office at the Polish embassy in Belgrade. In 1949 he returned to Poland and settled in Szczecin.

The current painting was most likely executed around 1926/1927 either during his trip to Marocco or on his return to Paris, where this work was most likely purchased at an exhibition at Galerie Durand-Ruel. Although mostly known for his landscape paintings this portrait of a woman (probably Berber) is finely executed. The piercing brown eyes staring straight at us. Her features standing out in the orange and yellow striped fabric of the garment contrasting against the darker vertical striped background.