Wilhelm Kotarbinskyi was an artist who worked in the fields of monumental, monumental-decorative, and easel painting. He was a prominent representative of academicism and symbolism in painting. From 1886 to 1896, he worked on the murals of St. Volodymyr's Cathedral in Kyiv.

The artist was born in 1848 in Nieborów (now in Poland). After finishing high school in Warsaw, he studied at the Warsaw Drawing Classes from 1866 to 1869. Although he enrolled at the University of Warsaw, he did not complete his studies there.

In 1871, he entered the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, where he studied under Francesco Podesti and graduated in 1875 with a gold medal.

In 1885, Professor Adrian Prakhov, who was overseeing the interior decoration of St. Volodymyr's Cathedral, invited Kotarbinskyi to join the cathedral's mural project. From 1886 to 1896, he worked on these murals. Along with Pavlo Svedomskyi, he completed 18 large paintings and 84 individual figures.

After completing the cathedral murals, Kotarbinskyi continued to work in the field of monumental painting. He decorated palaces that now house prominent Ukrainian museums. He also took commissions from wealthy Moscow patrons and created religious images for churches in Belarus. In 1890, he became a member of the Southern Russian Artists' Union and was actively involved in Kyiv's cultural life.

During World War I, he published his drawings on postcards with propaganda images that called for support for soldiers' families. Wilhelm Kotarbinskyi spent his last years in Kyiv and passed away in 1921.