Born into a farming family, Kazimierz Cycon attended primary school for only a few years. The first signs of mental illness appeared when he was twenty-one: constant agitation, anorexia, and progressive isolation. His family paid little attention to him, allowing him to slip gradually into madness.
Little by little, Kazimierz Cycon shut himself away in the attic and became increasingly aggressive, until one day, deemed too dangerous, he was committed to a psychiatric hospital. There, he lived withdrawn and passive, seeking no contact with others. He began drawing at the age of forty-two — first in pencil — and later painting in gouache. The motif of the face, overwhelmed by large eyes, recurs constantly throughout his work.