Medievalist art historian; influential in French Romanesque studies and stained glass. Grodecki was raised in a Polish-speaking family in Russian-controlled Poland. When he was eighteen, he left to study stagecraft under Emil Preetorius (1883-1973) in Berlin. Later he moved to Paris, enrolling at the école du Louvre. His teacher, Charles Mauricheau-Beaupré advised him to take courses by Henri Focillon at the Sorbonne and Collège de France.