Adolf Hyła

Adolf Hyła (May 2, 1897 – December 24, 1965) was a Polish painter and art teacher. He is known for painting a popular version of the "Divine Mercy image" in 1943.

Hyła was born in Bielsko-Biała, the son of Józef and Salomea, and his brother Antoni (1908–1975) was a sculptor. Adolf attended school in Kraków from 1903–1912, then in Khyriv, where he graduated in 1917. He studied figure painting and with Jacek Malczewski. In 1918–1920, he served intermittently in Polish Army, where around that time he worked in the office of the National Kilimkarni. In 1922, he studied art history and philosophy at Jagiellonian University. He taught drawing at a junior high school in Będzin between 1920–1948, teaching practical work in secondary schools in Kraków. He passed his two Fine Arts teaching classes, one in Cracow in 1930, and in 1936 at the Institute in Warsaw crafts exam for practical teaching. Hyła taught drawing and handicrafts at Mikołaj Kopernik Private School around 1934.

Hyła painted the Divine Mercy image for the Divine Mercy Sanctuary, Kraków, as a votive offering for having survived World War II. The image was painted by Hyła five years after the death of Saint Faustina Kowalska in 1938, under direction of her confessor Józef Andrasz. It is slightly based on an earlier 1934 image by Eugeniusz Kazimirowski, the painting of which was supervised by Kowalska herself and her another confessor Michał Sopoćko. Hyła's initial version had a country landscape behind Christ, but this was deemed "non-liturgical" and was subsequently edited out of the second, more familiar rendition.

Adolf Hyła also painted several portraits (including those of Albert Chmielowski, Józef Piłsudski, the Capuchin Provincial Kazimierz Niczyński) and a series of landscapes (including the Roman Forum, 1931, Church on Obidowa 1934 Świnica slope of Czarny Staw Gąsienicowy 1936, the river of Czarny Dunajec in Witów 1937, Dolina Kościeliska 1947, seascape in Orłowo 1947, coast in Sopot 1958).

When the command Archbishop of Kraków Karol Wojtyla began preparations for the beatification process, Hyła notarial deed gave the copyright to the Merciful Jesus convent in Kraków's Łagiewniki. He wanted the revenue from the publication of images have been transferred to Faustina's beatification process, but died in Kraków at the age of 68 before he could initiate the process.