Niewczyk Franciszek, *1859 Sowy (near Rawicz), †1945 Lviv, Polish luthier and wind instruments maker. He was a locksmith by profession, a student of luthier and trumpet maker H. Lange in Zgorzelec. In 1885, he founded an instrument workshop and depot in Poznań, which was moved in 1906 to Lviv, where it operated until 1949 (with several years break from 1939) as the first Polish manufacture of orchestral instruments, strings, and winds, as well as mandolins and guitars. He employed several workers there. His instruments were presented at the National Exhibition (Lviv, 1894), Poznań exhibition (1895), mobile exhibitions of Liga Pomocy Przemysłowej (1907–1909), Wystawa Przemysłu Liturgicznego (Lviv, 1909, with a diploma of honour and a letter of commendation for wind instruments), Polish National Exhibition in Poznań (1929, grand gold medal), exhibition of Zrzeszenie Przemysłu i Handlu Muzycznego (Warsaw, 1933). The violin with a note “F. N. we Lwowie fecit anno Dom. 1927 op. 33”, is well known. Niewczyk’s students were, e.g., B. Kaźmierczak and S. Kozłowski. Numerous instruments made by him have been preserved, for instance, in the collections of the Museum of Musical Instruments in Poznań.
Literature: A. Kucharska Współczesna polska sztuka lutnicza, Bydgoszcz 1989; K. Rottermund Budownictwo instrumentów muzycznych na terenie Wielkopolski w XIX i I połowie XX wieku, doctoral dissertation IS PAN, 1992.
