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Constructivism
in Poland 1923-1936
BLOK
Praesens
a.r.

Museum Folkwang Essen

12.5. - 24.6.1973

Rijksmuseum Kroller-Milller Otterlo

14. 7. - 2.9.1973
Mieczystaw Szczuka, Typography of BLOK, 1924, No 1, p. 1
 Foreword

The last 15 years have shown an ever growing interest in

constructivism. Earlier a normal development of this inter-
national movement was also impeded by the political
situation in Europe. In the late fifties on the other hand
artists began to show a new need for an objectivated mo-
tivation of their work. Hard Edge and Minimal Art in Ame-
rica, Zero in Western Europe, as well as many neo-con-
structivist tendencies, also in Eastern Europe, were not
only generally inspired by constructivism, but also directly
related to specific regional and national constructivist
traditions.
The development of the "De Stijl" and "Bauhaus " prin-
ciples has been widely propagated through a number of
important exhibitions. However, a really comprehensive
show of the , with these movements so closely related world
of constructivism, has as yet never been made.
Therefore we are all the more happy and thankful to be
able to present with this exhibition the first full showing
in Western Europe of the Polish contribution to this re-
volutionary movement. A contribution hitherto wellnigh
unknown outside Poland. Such ignorance seems amazing
if one takes in consideration that the work of the group
around Strzeminski actually represents a missing link in
the history of modern art, through its striving from an
individually motivated composition toward an objectivated
anonymous structure. Although especially the group
"Zero" showed an early interest for the significance of
Strzeminski's "Unistic " conceptions in particular , no fur-
ther acquaintance followed with the spectacular achieve-
ments of the Polish avant-garde of the twenties and thir-
ties. This exhibition finally fills one of the last gaps in our
information about the history of constructivism and so
restores continuity in the development of ideas about this
movement.
We are most grateful to all who have helped us to accom-
plish the organisation of an exhibition , that had been on
our minds for years already. In particular we want to ex-
press our warmest feelings of gratitude and admiration
to our colleague Ryszard Stanistawski, director of the
Muzeum Sztuki in t.6dz and his staff.
After we had made the choice of works to be exhibited,
they prepared all texts for the catalogue . Due to their
dedicated contributions an extensive choice of unique
source material could be published here for the first time.
Significance and size of the material presented to us have
forced us, also for financial reasons, to decide to publish
the catalogue in English only, with the exception of this
foreword and the introduction. We hope that our decision
will be understood.

The English translation of the Polish texts does not al-

ways fulfill all requirements that can be demanded nowa-
days. It must be taken in account, however, that the
translaters had to prepare an extensive and complicated
group of documents within an incredibly short period of
time. In spite of these circumstances we wanted to publish
this material, that is still practically unknown outside
Poland.
D. Hanisch
R. Oxenaar

The catalogue has been prepared and edited by

the director of the Museum Sztuki in t.6dz:
Ryszard Stanistawski and his collaborators Janina
t.adnowska, Jacek Ojrzynski and Janusz Zagrodzki.
The translations from Polish into English
were made by Piotr Graff and Ewa Krasinska .
Voorwoord
Sinds ongeveer 15 jaar bestaat er een groeiende belang-
stelling voor het konstruktivisme. Eerder werd een nor-
male ontwikkeling van deze internationale beweging mede
belemmerd door de politieke verhoudingen in Europa.
Anderzijds ontstond bij de kunstenaars in de late vijftiger
jaren een behoefte tot objektivering van hun werk. Hard
Edge en Minimal Art in Amerika, Zero in West-Europa en
vele neo-konstruktieve tendenzen, zeker niet in de laatste
plaats in Oost-Europa, werden niet alleen globaal ge'in-
spireerd door het konstruktivisme, maar ook geent op
specifieke, regionale en nationale konstruktivistische tra-
dities.
Terwijl de ideeen-ontwikkeling van ,,De Stijl" en het ,,Bau-
haus" door een reeks van grate tentoonstellingen bekend-
heid verkreeg, werd tot nog toe geen wezenlijk samen-
vattende expositie gemaakt van het met die stromingen zo
nauw verweven konstruktivisme.
Het verheugt ons daarom des te meer met deze tentoon-
stelling voor het eerst in West-Europa de Poolse bijdrage
tot deze revolutionaire beweging, die tot nog toe buiten
Polen vrijwel onbekend bleef, in haar voile betekenis te
kunnen presenteren. Die onbekendheid is eigenlijk ver-
bazingwekkend, omdat in het werk van de kring rond
Strzemiriski een missende schakel is te vinden tussen de
nog individueel gemotiveerde kompositie en een het
kunstwerk objektivierende anonyme struktuur. Ondanks
het feit dat vooral de groep ,,Zero" al eerder de betekenis
van deze ,,Unistische" konceptie heeft gesignaleerd volgde
er geen nadere kennismaking in het Westen met deze zo
hoogst uitzonderlijke prestatie van de Poolse avant-garde
uit de twintiger en dertiger jaren. Pas met deze tentoon-
stelling wordt een witte plek in onze informatie ingevuld.
Daarmee wordt ook de historische kontinu'iteit hersteld in
de gedachtenvorming over een voor de twintigste eeuwse
gntwikkeling zo belangrijke kunststroming.
Wij zijn grate dank verschuldigd aan allen die ons bij het
tot stand komen van deze tentoonstelling, waarover reeds
enige jaren geleden de eerste gesprekken werden ge-
voerd, hebben geholpen. Zeer in het bijzonder gaat onze
hartelijke dank uit naar onze collega Ryszard Stanislawski,
directeur van het Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz, en zijn mede-
werkers, die de door ons in gezamenlijk overleg gekozen
tentoongestelde werken en de katalogus wetenschappe-
1ij k hebben beschreven en bewerkt.
Dankzij het vele werk dat zij in zeer korte tijd hebben ver-
richt kan thans een zo uniek en uitvoerig bronnenmateriaal
warden gepubliceerd. Betekenis en omvang van het ma-
teriaal dat ons uit Polen werd aangeboden hebben ons,
mede om financiele redenen, doen besluiten de katalogus
met uitzondering van dit voorwoord alleen in het engels
te publiceren. Wij hopen dat er begrip zal bestaan voor
deze beslissing, die het mogelijk maakte al het beschik-
bare materiaal onverkort op te nemen.
De vertaling in het Engels van de vele Poolse teksten
beantwoord niet steeds aan de eisen die men tegenwordig
stellen mag. Daarbij moet in aanmerking warden geno-
men dat de vertalers in ongelofelijk korte tijd een om-
vangrijk en gecompliceerd materiaal moesten bewerken.
Ondanks de tijdnood wilden wij deze bij oms vrijwel geheel
ombekende teksten in ieder geval publiceren.
D. Hanisch
R. Oxenaar
Vorwort
Seit etwa 15 Jahren ist der Konstruktivismus auf zuneh-
mendes lnteresse gestoBen. Das lag einmal daran, daB
die politischen Verhaltnisse in Europa eine normale Ent-
wicklung dieser internationalen Bewegung nicht zugelas-
sen hatten; zum anderen auch daran, daB die KOnstler
ganz allgemein gegen Ende der 50er Jahre nach einer
objektiveren Motivation ihrer Arbeit suchten. Hard Edge
und Minimal Art in Amerika, Zero in Westeuropa und
viele neukonstruktive Sonderentwicklungen, nicht zuletzt
auch in Osteuropa, haben sich nicht nur ganz allgemein
auf den Konstruktivismus bezogen, sondern sie haben oft
an ganz spezifische regionale oder nationale Traditionen
angeknOpft.
Wahrend »De Stijl« und »Bauhaus« durch eine Reihe von
groBen Ausstellungen in der ganzen Breite ihrer Gedan-
ken bekannt gemacht warden sind, ist bislang eine zu-
sammenfassende Ausstellung des ihnen vorausgehenden
Konstruktivismus ausgeblieben.
Um so mehr freut es uns, mit dieser Ausstellung - erst-
malig in Westeuropa - den Beitrag Polens zu dieser revo-
lutionaren Bewegung darzustellen; ein Beitrag, der im
Westen bisher so gut wie unbekannt geblieben ist. Das ist
deswegen erstaunlich, weil der Kreis um Strzemiriski ge-
nau das Bindeglied zwischen der noch individuell moti-
vierten Komposition und der das Kunstwerk verobjektivie-
renden anonymen Struktur darstellt. Trotz frOher Hinweise
von Zero auf die Bedeutung dieser »unistischen« Konzep-
tion blieb eine Darstellung dieser aufsehenerregenden
Leistung der polnischen Avantgarde der 20er und 30er
Jahre im Westen aus. Erst diese Ausstellung schlieBt die
lnformationslOcke und stellt damit die Kontinuitat einer
kOnstlerischen Denkbewegung wieder her.
Wir sind allen zu Dank verpflichtet, die uns bei der Ver-
wirklichung dieser schon seit einigen Jahren geplanten
Ausstellung behilflich waren. Ganz besonders herzlich
danken wir unserem Kollegen Ryszard Stanislawski, Di-
rektor des Museums Sztuki in Lodz, und seinem Mitarbei-
terstab, der die mit uns ausgewahlten Werke und den
Katalog wissenschaftlich bearbeitet hat.
Bedeutung und Umfang dieses Materials zwangen uns,
bis auf die Vortexte nur die englische Sprache zu verwen-
den, um die Kosten einzugrenzen. Wir bitten die Benutzer,
diesen sachlichen Grund anzuerkennen.
Auch wenn die komplizierte englische Obersetzung der
polnischen Urtexte nicht immer dem aktuellen Stand der
Sprache und ihrer Anwendung entspricht, mOssen die
Schwierigkeiten berOcksichtigt werden, denen sich die
Obersetzer wahrend der kurzen Vorbereitungszeit gegen-
Ober sahen. Trotz der Zeitnot wollten wir das fOr die
Analyse vieler aktueller Probleme so wichtige Material
bei uns veroffentlichen.
D. Hanisch
R. Oxenaar
 /

Wtadystaw Strzemir'lski, Typography of Zwrotnica, 1923,

No 6, p.172
Table of contents (Wladyslaw Strzeminski?) -
Fashion as Architecture p. 110

Introduction - Ryszard Stanislawski p. 8 A Communication of the "a. r." group p. 111

A Chronicle of the Polish Avantgarde - Wladyslaw Strzeminski - Funct ional Printing p. 111
Andrzej Turowski p. 20
Wladyslaw Strzeminski -
The Polish Revolutionary Avantgarde - Letters to Julian Przybos p. 113
Andrzej Turowski p. 30
Katarzyna Kobro - Functionalism p. 117
Artistic Groups of the Constructivist Avantgarde
Wladyslaw Strzeminski -
Blok 1924-1926 - Andrzej Turowski p. 36 Modern Art in Poland a fragment p. 121

Praesens 1926-1939 - Andrzej Turowski p. 39 Biographical Notes

"a. r." 1929-1936 - Anna labElcka p. 41 Henryk Berlewi - Barbara Wielgus p. 122

Avantgarde Periodicals of the Constructivist Stanislaw Brukalski -

Movement - Andrzej Turowski p. 47 based on lzabella Wislocka 's text p. 122

Katarzyna Kobro and Wladyslaw Strzeminski, Jan BrzElkowski - Andrzej Plauszewski p. 123
Artistic Activities during the October Revolution -
Janusz Zagrodzki p. 53 Karol Hiller - Janina ladnowska p. 124

Reconstruction of Katarzyna Kobro 's sculptures - Witold Kajruksztis - Andrzej Turowski p. 126
Janusz Zagrodzki p. 55
Katarzyna Kobro - Janusz Zagrodzki p. 126
Polish Constructivism. Source Material -
selected and edited by Andrzej Turowski Jalu Kurek - Malgorzata and Janusz
Zagrodzki p. 130
Tadeusz Peiper - Modern City. Mass. Machine p. 59
Bohdan Lachert -
Mieczyslaw Szczuka - based on lzabella Wislocka's text p. 131
Reaction on the Environment ... p. 66
Maria Niez-Borowiak - Andrzej Turowski p. 132
Catalogue of the New Art Exhibition
(Wladyslaw Strzeminski, Witold Kajruksztis, Tadeusz Peiper - Andrzej Plauszewski p. 132
Teresa Zarnower) p. 68
Kazimierz Podsadecki - Janusz Zagrodzki p. 133
Henryk Berlewi - Mechano-Faktur p. 72
Julian Przybos - Andrzej Plauszewski p. 134
Editorial - "Blok" - We do away ... p. 75
Aleksander Rafatowski - Barbara Wielgus p. 135
Wladyslaw Strzeminski -
What is Legitimately Called New Art ... ? p. 75 Henryk Stai:ewski - Janina ladnowska p. 136

Editorial - "Blok" - What is Constructivism? p. 78 Wladyslaw Strzeminski - Andrzej Turowski p. 137

Wladyslaw Strzeminski - B = 2, to read ... p. 80 Helena Syrkus -

based on lzabella Wislocka's text p. 142
Henryk Stai:ewski - On Abstract Art p. 85
Szymon Syrkus -
Wladyslaw Strzeminski - Unism in Painting p. 86 based on lzabella Wistocka's text p. 143

Mieczyslaw Szczuka - Art and Reality p. 96 Jozef Szanajca -

based on lzabella Wistocka's text p. 144
Wladyslaw Strzeminski - Object and Space p. 104
Mieczyslaw Szczuka - Andrzej Turowski p. 145
Wladystaw Strzeminski, Szymon Syrkus -
Present Architecture and Painting p. 105 Teresa Zarnower - Andrzej Turowski p. 146

Katarzyna Kobro , Wladystaw Strzeminski - Selected Bibliography -

Composition of Space, Calculations of edited by Andrzej Turowski p. 148
Spatio-Temporal Rhythm p. 107
Catalogue - prepared by Anna labe,cka
Wladystaw Strzeminski - and Janina ladnowska, with the collaboration
The Principles of New Architecture p. 109 of Andrzej Turowski and Janusz Zagrodski p. 157

7
Introduction

Various museums and research centers in the world make

systematic efforts to bring together the artistic traditions
of the recent five decades. The present exhibition offers
a survey of a relatively little known chapter of those tradi-
tions: the activities of the Polish avantgarde between the
two world wars. Polish artists of that period, those whose
works are presented here and others, as e.g. a painter,
playwright and philosopher, Stanislaw lgnacy Witkiewicz,
made important artistic and theoretical contributions to
the European panorama of the 20th century.
The traces of artistic endeavours displayed in the exhibi-
tion fail to represent fully the output of several artists. This
is particularly true for Mieczysfaw Szczuka, Katarzyna
Kobro and Henryk Stai:ewski. Their paintings, designs,
sculptures, graphic works, were almost completely des-
troyed during the recent war; this makes us ponder even
more carefully over each reproduction or text from the
period. We publish a selection of theoretical statements
by artists, was well as a set of historical, documentary
material in order to provide a theoretical context, to evoke
the hot atmosphere of the manifestos, or to retrace im-
portant experiments, as e.g. in the field of art teaching.
There were several causes underlying the peculiar and
difficult situation of the Polish constructivist avantgarde
(we accept the term, though we are aware that it is by no
means adequate to all the endeavours of the epoch). In
the first place, the earliest self-assertions of constructi-
vists (1922-1923) had been directly preceded by the activi-
ties, between 1917 and 1923, of a group of poets who
called themselves "futurists" and of artists who assumed
the label of "formists". However, the manifestos of artistic
innovators aware of the presence of futurism, cubism and
Duchamp's anti-art (Witkiewicz), the controversies about
imminent cultural changes and the apparent dangers
threatening art in its essential being, all the vital themes
of Polish futurists and formists, seemed to be rather out-
dated and without any real aim to the constructivists.
The forecasts announced by the former appeared as
already verified (or falsified) by the accelerated pace of
history. Stai:ewski, Strzeminski, Berlewi and Kobro made
their start without a hunch, from avowedly and actually
innovative positions in relation to their predecessors.
The constructivists were vividly aware of the revolutionary
character of their movement, as they had to rely on their
own forces only, in an environment that was indifferent
to their pursuits, or even unprepared and hostile towards
them. By the way, the situation in the rest of Europe
was rather similar, as is witnessed, e.g., by the solitude
of the "Cercle et Carre" group in France. Unlike the pain-
ters and sculptors, the architects connected with the con-
structivist movement had notable succes, in particular
during the thirties many of their building designs and
urban projects were realized, and they enjoyed some
importance in the international world of architecture.
But in spite of such unfavourable conditions, the "a. r."
or "revolutionary artists" group, though suspect from the
beginning because of its name, could win so much respect
and authority that it was fully trusted when it started its
attempts to organize a museum collection of contempo-
rary abstract European art in l6dz. This collection can be
a model of understanding and disinterested collaboration
of Polish and foreign artists and of the progressive autho-
rities of a workers' city, by then dominated by socialists.
Many of the practical ideas of the constructivist movement,
and of its major personalities: Strzemir'lski, Szczuka, Sta-
i:ewski, Hiller, Kobro, could never be realized. Among
them, Strzemir'lski often interpreted architecture more as
a general modelling of the way of life than as a concrete
programme of building, while Stai:ewski abstained from
lnleiding
Vele Musea en wetenschappelijke instituten overal ter
wereld zijn tegenwoordig systematisch bezig om de ar-
tistieke tradities van de lsaatste vijftig jaar in kaart te
brengen. Deze tentoonstelling geeft een overzicht van een
naar verhouding weinig bekend hoofdstuk binnen deze
tradities: de aktiviteiten van de Poolse avantgarde tussen
de twee wereldoorlogen. Poolse kunstenaars uit die Pe-
riode, zowel zij van wie hier werk wordt gepresenteerd,
als bij voorbeeld ook de schilder, toneelschrijver en wijs-
geer Stanistav lgnacy Witkiewicz, hebben een belang-
rijke bijdrage geleverd aan het Europese panorama der
kunsten in de twintigste eeuw.
Hetgeen in deze expositie wordt getoond geerft geen
volledig representatief beeld van wat werd geproduceerd.
Dit geldt vooral het werk van mieczystaw Szczuka, Katar-
zyna Kobro en Henryk Stai:ewski. Veel van hun schilder-
ijen en beelden, hun grafisch werk en hun ontwerpen,
o. a. voor architectuur en toeeldecor, ging gedurende de
tweede wereldoorlog verloren. Dit maakt het eens te meer
noodzakelijk om de sporen van dit werk, die in geschrifte
zijn blijven bestaan, zorgvuldig te behandelen. Daarom
wordt hier een ruime keuze gepubliceerd uit de theo-
retische teksten van de kunstenaars zelf, alsook een
overzicht van het historische beeldmateriaal. Daarmee
wordt een theoretische achtergrond gegeven, er wordt
iets van de actualiteit van de manifesten opgeroepen en
men wordt herinnerd aan belangrijke experimenten, zoals
op het gebied van het kunstonderwijs .
Er waren vele redenen voor de merkwaardige en moeilijke
positie van de Poolse constructivistische avantgarde in
hun eigen tijd. (Het zij hier vermeld dat wij de term con-
structivisme in deze samenhang accepteren, hoewel
daarmee geenzins alle verworvenheden van die avant-
garde warden gedekt.) In de eerste plaats werden de
vroegste uitingen van de constructivisten (1922-1923)
direct voorafgegaan door activiteiten van een groep
dichters die zich ,,futuristen" noemden (1917-1923) en
van de schilders-groep der zogenaamde ,,formisten".
Alles wat de Poolse futuristen en formisten hadden ge-
gedaan leek echter nogal ouderwets. De manifesten van
de grate vernieuwers, die zich zo bewust waren van het
futurisme, het cubisme en de anti-kunst van Duchamp,
de controverse over een dreigende culturele revolutie
en een aantasting van het essentiele in alle kunst - het
had de constructivisten niet veel meer te zeggen. Alie
voorspellingen waren al gewaarmerkt of vervalst door de
voortgang van de geschiedenis. Strzemir'lski, Stai:ewski,
Berlewi en Kobro begonnen hun werk als waarachtige
vernieuwers, zonder veel relatie tot hun voorgangers.
De constructivisten waren zich zeer bewust van het re-
volutionaire karakter van hun streven. Zij waren geheel
op zichzelf aangewezen in een omgeving die ofwel totaal
onverschillig of zelfs vijandig reageerde. De situatie was
in vele Europese landen overigens nauwelijks anders,
zoals bijvoorbeeld blijkt uit het isolement van de groep
Cercle et Carre in Frankrijk. Anders dan de schilders en
beeldhouwers, die tot de constructivistische beweging
behoorden, hadden de architecten wel succes. Vooral
gedurende de dertiger jaren werden veel van hun bouw-
plannen en stedebouwkundige projecten uitgevoerd en
zij kregen ook enige bekendheid in het buitenland.
Ondanks deze ongunstige omstandigheden en de van het
begin at verdachte naam van de groep: a. r. staat voor
revolutionaire kunstenaars, verwierven de leden zich toch
zoveel respect en vertrouwen dat het hun kon lukken om
in l6di: een verzameling van abstrakte moderne kunst uit
heel Europa bijeen te brengen, die tenslotte als officieel
museumbezit werd geaccepteerd. De ontstaansgeschie-
denis van deze collectie toont op voorbeeldige wijze hoe
Einfiihrung
Verschiedene Museen und Forschungszentren der Welt
unternehmen es systematisch, die kOnstlerische Tradition
der letzten funf Jahrzehnte zu untersuchen. Auch diese
Ausstellung bietet einen Einblick in ein verhaltnismi:i.Big
wenig bekanntes Kapitel jener Traditionen: ni:i.mlich den
Wirkungskreis der polnischen Avantgarde zwischen den
beiden Weltkriegen. Polnische KOnstler aus dieser Zeit,
deren Werke hier ausgestellt sind, und andere, wie z. B.
der Maler, Schriftsteller und Philosoph, Stanistaw lgnacy
Witkiewicz, haben einen wesentlichen kOnstlerischen und
theoretischen Beitrag zum geistigen Panorama Europas
im 20. Jahrhundert geleistet.
Naturlich konnen die Spuren kOnstlerischer BemOhungen,
wie sie auf der Ausstellung zutage treten, das Schaffen
der KOnstler nicht umfassend darstellen. Das gilt vor allem
fur Mieczystaw Szczuka, Katarzyna Kobro und Henryk
Stai:ewski, deren Malereien, Zeichnungen, Skulpturen und
graphische Arbeiten wi:i.hrend des letzten Krieges fast voll-
sti:i.ndig zerstort wurden. Diese Tatsache veranlaBt uns,
Ober jede Reproduktion und jeden Text aus dieser Pe-
riode noch grOndlicher nachzudenken. Wir veroffentlichen
eine Auswahl theoretischer Aussagen von KOnstlern, wie
auch historisches Dokumentationsmaterial , das sowohl
theoretische Zusammenhange aufzeigen und die heiBe
Atmosphi:i.re jener Manifeste wieder heraufbeschworen, als
auch an wichtige Experimente erinnern soil, die z. B. auf
dem Gebiet der Kunsterziehung gemacht wurden.
Es gab verschiedene GrOnde fur die eigenartige und
schwierige Situation der polnischen konstruktivistischen
Avantgarde (wir akzeptieren diese Bezeichnung, obwohl
wir uns darOber im klaren sind, daB sie keineswegs alien
BemOhungen dieser Epoche gerecht wird). Zuni:i.chst war
der ersten Selbstdarstellung der Konstruktivisten (1922 bis
1923) das Wirken einer Gruppe von Dichtern, die sich
»Futuristen« nannte, und KOnstlern, die unter dem Namen
»Formisten« firmierten (zwischen 1917 und 1923) unmittel-
bar vorausgegangen . Jedoch erschienen den Konstrukti-
visten die Kundgebungen kOnstlerischer Neuerer, die das
Vorhandensein von Futurismus, Kubismus und Anti-Kunst
Duchamps (Witkiewicz), sowie die Kontroversen Ober un-
mittelbar bevorstehende kulturelle Veri:i.nderungen und
auch Gefahren erkannten, als lebenswichtige Themen
eher schon Oberholt und wenig erstrebenswert. AuBerdem
hatte es den Anschein, daB Vorhersagen, die jene mach-
ten, bere its vom beschleunigten Schritt der Geschichte
entweder als wahr besti:i.tigt oder als falsch nachgewiesen
warden seien. Im Vergleich zu ihren Vorli:i.ufern gingen
Stai:ewski, Strzemir'lski , Berlewi und Kobro ohne bose
Vorahnung von zugestandenermaBen und auch in Wirk-
lichkeit erneuernden Positionen aus.
Die Konstruktivisten waren sich durchaus Ober den revolu-
tioni:i.ren Charakter ihrer Bewegung im klaren; denn sie
muBten sich ausschlieBlich auf ihre eigenen Kri:i.fte ver-
lassen, und dies in einer Umwelt, die ihrem Streben gleich-
gOltig, unvorbereitet oder sogar feindselig gegenOber-
stand . Obrigens war die Lage im Obrigen Europa ziemlich
i:i.hnlich, wie dies z. B. auch die lsolierung der Gruppe
»Cercle et Carre« in Frankreich zeigte. Die Architekten,
die mit der konstruktivistischen Bewegung verbunden wa-
ren, hatten - im Gegensatz zu den Malern und Bildhauern
- bemerkenswerte Erfolge, vor allem in den 30er Jahren.
Viele ihrer Baupli:i.ne und sti:i.dtebaulichen Projekte wur-
den verwirklicht, und sie genossen in internationalen Ar-
chitekturkreisen Ansehen.
Aber trotz derartig ungOnstiger Bedingungen konnte die
Gruppe »a. r.« oder »die revolutioni:i.ren KOnstler« - ob-
wohl sie von vornherein wegen dieses Namens verdi:i.chtig
waren - so viel Respekt und Autoriti:i.t gewinnen, daB man
ihnen voiles Vertrauen entgegenbrachte, als sie den Ver-
9
 discussing the aims of util itarian art. But a large number
of programme statements asserted the necessity of large
scale specialized effort in urban designing, building, fur-
niture making, typography , and also visual propaganda,
film and theatre. Indeed, in each of these fields eminent
works emerged, as for example the book and magazine
typography by Strzeminski, Szczuka and Podsadecki, stage
settings by Hiller, films by Themerson and Kurek. But
they were scattered and virtually unrelated to each other
and they failed to involve the general public, as their au-
thors desired.
The constructivist trend defined the pecul iar image of the
avantgarde movement in this country and at the same
time it made impor tant contributions internationally. We
should mention here such ideas as mechano-texture by
Berlewi , heliography by Hiller, photo-montage by Szczuka,
typography and new type designs by Strzeminski, and
above all the conception of unism by Strzeminski and the
composition of space by Kobro. In poetry, Peiper 's con-
structivist programme was a counterpart of those ideas.
Unism appears as an integra l and encompassing system
of artistic thinking, remarkably consistent and thrillingly
exemplified by unistic paint ings.
The unistic theory is valuable to us because of another
of its essential characteristics. I mean the principle, as-
sumed by Strzeminski, of operating with two opposed
conceptual models within what can be called a dichoto-
mous system. It can be argued that the opposition ba-
roque-unism has its origin in Wolfflin's theory of art, but
on the other hand we know that many such dichotomies ,
original and fruitful, have been produced in science, phi-
losophy and art theo ry during the 20th century . This is
the structure, e.g., of Michel Seuphor's fine book " Le style
et le cri", referring by its title , though in a different con-
text , to the two elements that bring art to existence. We
can see a similar structure in the artistic programme of
Ad Reinhardt, similar to Strzeminski's in its normative
overtones. It is also worth to be reminded that Robert
Morris also makes use of a pair of opposed concepts: the
"arbitrary " and the " non-arbitrary".
Dichotomous thinking - even though it is obviously nor-
mative and absolutist in Strzeminski's programme - need
not mean a rigid doctr ine. Strzeminski himself propagated,
beside unism, also different principles of art istic model-
ling: a dynamic style in typography, a "technological"
aproach to urban planning, a system of artistic education,
preparing young people to the handling of modern tech-
nologies and modern social demands. Moreover, in his
later years he propagated a physiological approach to
painting, accounting for the eye's reactions to light stimu li.
As it seems , e.g . the " minimal artists " today conceive
their intrusions upon the real environment in a similarly
broad manner, from theatre experiments to landscape
shaping . All these are not compromises or gaps in the
assumed programme , but a reflection of the thought that
beside the neutral monotony of the plane of a unistic pic-
ture, or beside the neutrality or indifference implied by
the general idea of " minimal art" , there are also other
areas requiring a conscious and careful action on the part
of the same artist, as if byway of a necessary complement.
The Polish avantgarde was connected by many links, in
a logical and organic manner, with the rest of the Euro-
pean artistic panorama. There were similarities, genetic
relationships , or sometimes polemical arguments between
Polish artists and pioneers of avantgarde art. We should
mention the attitude of Szczuka to Tatlin, the position of
Strzeminski towards Tatlin and Malevich, Stazewski's
standpoint in the controversy between Mondrian and van
Doesburg, the relationship of Strzeminski 's didactic pro-
gramme and the Bauhaus , the works of the " Praesens "
group of architects in comparison with Le Corbusier, etc.
Poolse en buitenlandse kunstenaars effectief konden sa-
menwerken met de progressief denkende autoriteiten
in de toen sterk socialistische stad Lodz. Vele praktische
ideeen, die door de belangrijkste persoonlijkheden in de
constructivistische Beweging (Strzeminski, Szczuka, Sta-
i:ewski, Hiller en Kobro) werden ontwikkeld kwamen
helaas nooit tot uitvoering. Strzeminski interpreteerde
architectuur vooral als een manier van leven, terwijl
Stai:ewski zich niet wenste in te laten met de doelstellin-
gen van een utilitaire kunst. Maar in veel van hun pro-
grammapunten werd nadruk gelegd op de noodzakelijk-
heid meer en beter werk te verrichten op het gebied van
stadsontwikkeling, architectuur, meubelontwerpen en ty-
pografie, terwijl ook aandacht werd gegeven aan visuele
propaganda, film en toneel. Op ieder van deze gebieden
brachten zij ook inderdaad belangrijke dingen tot stand.
Zo bijvoorbeeld de boeken en tijdschriften die Strzeminski,
Szczuka en Podsadecki typografisch verzorgden, de toneel-
decors van Hiller en de films van Themerson en Kurek.
Maar het bleven verspreide en onsamenhangende werk-
zaamheden, die niet, zoals de kunstenaars zozeer hoop-
ten, van invloed waren op een groot publiek.
De constructivistische beweging gaf een karakteristieke
eigenheid aan de Poolse Avantgarde en leverde tege-
lijkertijd een belangrijke bijdrage aan de internationale
ontwikkeling van de kunst. In dit verband moeten zeker
worden vermeld: de ,,Mechano-Fakturen" van Berlewi, de
heliografieen van Hiller, de fotomontages van Szczuka
en de typografische ontwerpen van Strzeminski. Bovenal
echter het unisme dat door Strzeminski werd ontwikkeld
en de ruimte-composities van Kobro. In de poezie
tenslotte werden door Peiper gelijksoortige ideeen ont-
wikkeld. Het Unisme presenteert zich als een integrale
alles omvattende kunsttheorie, die buitengewoon conse-
quent werd uitgewerkt en op brilliante wijze toegepast
in de unistische schilderijen van Strzeminski.
De unistische theorie is om vele redenen waardevol, o. a.
ook vanwege het experiment dat systematisch van twee
evenwaardige maar tegengestelde grondgedachten wordt
uitgegaan. De tegenstelling Barok-Unisme vindt zeker
haar oorsprong in de theorieen van Wolfflin, hoewel
gelijksoortige gedachten ook in de wetenschap en de
filosofie niet onbekend zijn. Een dergelijke ideeen-ont-
wikkeling vindt men bijvoorbeeld in het voortreffelijke
boek van Michel Seuphor: ,,Le style et le cri", dat in de
titel daarvan reeds getuigd. Ook Ad Reinhardt's theorieen
lijken zeker verwant aan die van Strzeminski, en tenslotte
is het de moeite waard om te vermelden dat Robert Morris
steeds met paren van tegengestelde concepten werkt.
Deze denktrant, die in Strzeminski's programma als nor-
matief en absolutistisch verschijnt, hoeft daarom nog niet
tot een starre doctrine te leiden. Strzeminski zelf hield
zich naast het Unisme ook met andere kunstopvattingen
bezig, zoals blijkt uit de dynamische stijl van zijn typo-
grafie en zijn technologische benadering van stedebouw-
kundige problemen. In het kunstonderwijs trachtte hij ook
steeds om jonge mensen vertrouwd te maken met de
moderne techniek en met sociale vraagstrukken. Boven-
dien propageerde hij in zijn latere jaren een fysiologische
benadering van de schilderkunst, waarbij het hem vooral
ging om de reacties van het oog op lichtimpulsen. In de
hedendaagse Minimal Art wordt op een dergelijke brede
wijze ingegaan op de ons omgevende werkelijkheid: van
toneel-experimenten tot landschapsarchitectuur. Dit alles
hoeft noch een compromis noch een programmatische
inconsequentie in te houden. Strzeminski was er zich
steeds van bewust dat naast de monotonie van een unis-
tisch schilderij, zoals ook naast de neuteraliteit van Mini-
mal Art, andere gebieden bestaan, die het waard zijn door
een kunstenaar te worden onderzocht.
De Poolse avantgarde had op velerlei wijze en als van-
such unternahmen, eine Museumssammlung zeitgenossi-
scher abstrakter europaischer Kunst in Lodz aufzubauen.
Die Geschichte dieser Kollektion kann als Beispiel gelten
tor die Verstandigung und uneigennOtzige Zusammen-
arbeit polnischer und auslandischer KOnstler, sowie die
Progressivitat der Behorden einer Arbeiterstadt, die bis
dahin von Sozialisten getohrt wurde .
Viele praktische ldeen der konstruktivistischen Bewegung
und ihrer profiliertesten Personlichkeiten: Strzeminski,
Szczuka, Stai:ewski, Hiller und Kobro, konnten dagegen
nie verwirklicht werden. Unter ihnen interpretierte Strze-
minski Architektur haufig mehr als ein allgemeines Ge-
stalten der Lebensweise, denn als konkretes Programm
der Baukunst, wahrend Stai:ewski Ober Ziele einer das
NOtzlichkeits-Prinzip vertretenden Kunst gar nicht disku-
tierte. Jedoch unterstrich eine groBe Zahl von Programm-
Aussagen die Notwendigkeit tor groBangelegte und dif-
ferenzierte Anstrengungen in stadtebaulicher Planung, im
Stadtebau, in der Mobelherstellung, der Typographie, wie
auch im Bereich der visuellen Propaganda, dem Film und
dem Theater. Und tatsachlich tauchten auf jedem dieser
Gebiete bedeutende Werke auf, wie z. B. Buch- und Zeit-
schriften-Ausstattungen von Strzeminski, Szczuka und
Podsadecki, BOhnenbilder von Hiller, Filme von Themer-
son und Kurek; jedoch traten diese vereinzelt auf, es be-
stand keinerlei Verbindung zwischen ihnen, und sie bezo-
gen die allgemeine bffentlichkeit nicht so mit ein, wie sie
es selbst gem gewunscht hatten.
Die konstruktivistische Richtung kennzeichnete das be-
sondere Image der avantgardistischen Bewegung in die-
sem Lande, und gleichzeitig lieferte sie einen wichtigen
Beitrag zur Kunst der Welt. Hier sollten wir Gedanken
erwahnen, wie z. B. die der Mechano-Struktur von Berlewi,
der Heliographie von Hiller, der Photomontage von Szczu-
ka, der Typographie und des neuen Lettern-Schnitts von
Strzeminski, vor allem aber die Konzeption des »Unis-
mus« von Strzeminski sowie die Raum-Kompositionen der
Ko bro.
In der Dichtkunst war das konstruktivistische Programm
Peipers das Gegenstuck jener Gedanken. Unismus er-
schien als integrales und umfassendes Modell kOnstleri-
schen Denkens, war erstaunlich bestandig und wurde
auf erregende Weise durch unistische Gemalde veran-
schaulicht.
Die unistische Theorie ist wegen einer weiteren grund-
legenden Eigenart tor uns so Oberraschend. lch meine
damit das von Strzeminski angenommene Prinzip des
Arbeitens mit zwei gegensatzlichen Begriffs-Modellen,
innerhalb eines, man konnte sagen, dichotomischen Sy-
stems.
Man kann zwar argumentieren, daB die GegenOberstel-
lung Barock-Unismus ihren Ursprung in Wolfflins Theorie
der Kunst hat; jedoch wissen wir andererseits, daB viele
solcher origineller und fruchtbarer Dichotomien in der Ge-
schichte der Wissenschaft, Philosophie und Kunst-Theorie
des 20. Jahrhunderts hervorgebracht wurden. Dies bildet
zum Beispiel auch die Struktur des hervorragenden Bu-
ches von Michel Seuphor, dessen Titel »Le style et le cri«,
wenn auch in anderem Zusammenhang, so doch auf die
beiden Elemente hinweist, die an sich Kunst Oberhaupt
ins Leben rufen. Eine ahnliche Struktur konnen wir aus
dem kOnstlerischen Programm Ad Reinhardts entnehmen,
das dem Strzeminskis in seinem normativen Unterton
recht nahe kommt. AuBerdem lohnt es, daran zu erinnern,
daB Robert Morris ebenfalls gegensatzliche Konzepte,
namlich »willkOrlich« und »nicht willkOrlich« verwendet.
Dichotomisches Denken - wenn es auch im Programm
Strzeminskis offensichtlich normativ und absolutistisch ist
- muB nicht unbedingt eine starre Doktrin bedeuten. Strze-
minski selbst hat neben dem Unismus auch verschiedene
Grundsatze kOnstlerischen Formens propagiert: einen
11
 Some Polish artists had personal links with the Soviet
avantgarde, others had more contacts with Paris or Berlin.
Strzemir'iski's theory of unism is a particularly interesting
example, as it is, on the one hand, a continuation of
Malevich's suprematism and, on the other, its complete
opposition. Another example is the very original output of
Katarzyna Kobro, whose mathematical experiments applied
to the arrangement of space have no equal counterparts.
Some of the constructivist ideas seem to anticipate fu-
ture developments. This is how we apprehend today
Szczuka's declarations about the relation of art to the
aggregate of phenomena which we call "the mass media".
Easel painting should give way to new genres of art, for
which reproduction would not be a didactic device of
minor importance, but the works themselves would be
circulated in massive numbers. This idea is now realized
in the form of multiples. There is an obvious similarity
to the theory of Walter Benjamin, a few years later, that
contemporary art will have to abandon the "aura" of
uniqueness and to take into account the conditions of
mechanical reproduction which secularize the process of
reception of art by the masses. In this context Szczuka,
who died in 1927 at the age of 29, appears not only as an
advocate of the "beauty of utilitarianism" and of socially
useful art, but as a man interested in the future conse-
quences of artistic developments which are brought about
by the increasing role of the mass media.
In spite of its retrospective character, the exhibition has
a vital message for us. The avantgarde artistic program-
mes deal with problems which are still open. They are
taken up again and aga in in the changing circumstances
which determine the progress of material culture and the
maturing of new ideas.
Examples are provided by artists who shape the environ-
ment in which we live: the great projects of urban spaces,
the visual surroundings of the systems of communication,
advertising, typography, the scenery of mass shows or
TV programmes. If we see in such terms the achievements
and attempts of Polish artists from before the war - many
of them not realized because of their pioneering charac-
ter and the deplorable circumstances - as well as the
present endeavours, we shall note a common feature: the
active attitude towards the world, a tendency to change
reality with an underlying feeling of responsability for
the present and for the future. This kind of active crea-
tivity comes even more clearly to the fore if we oppose
it against the mere passive production of purely aesthetic
values which, however respectable within their own do-
main, do no more but reflect what is there.
The active, shaping, constructive sort of mind typical for
the participants of the Polish avantgarde movement justi-
fies us, I believe, in covering all those represented in the
exhibition with the common name of constructivists. Their
original conceptions often step beyond the historically
limited, orthodox meaning of the term, but the broadening
of its scope allowed us to bring out even more the deep
moral sense of the verb "to construe". It means, in this con-
text, a process of the formation of positively engaged
values in poetry, painting, in art in general conceived as
a laboratory, and in art as a source of new ideas and
postulates. To construe something that has never been,
in the realm of spirit and in the sphere of material objects,
something which is open and which requires an open mind.
zelfsprekend contact met wat er verder in Europa ge-
beurde. Er bestonden persoonlijke relaties, historische
verwantschappen en soms polemische argumenten tussen
Poolse kunstenaars en de pioniers van de Europese
avantgarde. Zo bijvoorbeeld de afwerende houding van
Szczuka tegenover Tatlin, de relaties van Strzemir'lski met
Tatlin en Malevich, de stellingname van Stai:ewski in de
controverse tussen Mondriaan en Van Doesburg, de ver-
wantschap tussen de onderwijs-programma's van Strze-
mir'lski en het Bauhaus, het werk van de Praesens-archi-
tecten in vergelijking met Le Corbusier en nog zoveel
meer.
Sommige Poolse kunstenaars hadden vorral contacten
met de Sowjet-avantgarde, anderen meer met Parijs en
Berlijn.
Strzemir'lski's Unisme komt voort uit het Suprematisme
van Malevich, maar ontwikkelde zich ten dele in een
tegengestelde richting. De mathematische experimenten
met ruimte-composities van Katarzyna Kobro bleven een
originele bijdrage zonder direct voorbeeld.
Sommige constructivistische ideeen lijken vooruit te
!open op latere ontwikkelingen. Zo is het interessant wat
Szczuka zegt over de relatie van kunst tot wat wij nu de
massa-media noemen. Het ezel-schilderij moet plaats
maken voor een nieuw soort kunst,waarbij de reproductie,
het in oplage vervaardigde object, niet alleen als didac-
tisch middel wordt gebruikt, maar als kunstwerk in grote
hoevelheden wordt verspreid. Multiples noemen wij
zulke kunstwerken tegenwoordig. Zo werd iets verwezen-
lijkt dat wij uit de theorie van Walter Benjamin kennen.
De kunst werd van haar ,,aura" bevrijd en via mecha-
nische reproductie-technieken aan de mensen ter beschik-
king gesteld. In dit verband is Szczuka, die in 1927 op
29-jarige leeftijd overleed, niet alleen de man die de
schoonheid van het nuttige propageerde, maar ook ie-
mand die voorzag welk een belangrijke rol de massa-
media in de ontwikkeling van de kunst zouden gaan
spelen.
Ondanks het retrospectieve karakter is deze tentoon-
stelling toch zeer actueel. De constructivistische kunste-
naars hielden zich bezig met problemen die nog steeds
van betekenis zijn. Problemen, die onder steeds andere
omstandigheden, toch weer tot nieuwe ideeen kunnen
leiden.
Er zijn vele voorbeelden van kunstenaars die ook nu vorm
geven aan de omgeving waarin wij leven, die zich bezig
houden met stadsontwikkelings-projecten, met de visuele
aspecten van communicatie-systemen, met reclame, typo-
grafie, massa-bijeenkomsten en T. V.-programma's. Als
men tegen deze achtergrond de pogingen en resultaten
van de vooroorlogse Poolse avantgarde stelt (veel werd
niet gerealiseerd omdat de tijden moeilijk waren en de
ideeen te progressief), en dan vergelijkt met wat nu
gebeurd, blijken er gezamelijke uitgangspunten te zijn:
een aktieve houding tegenover de wereld, een behoefte
aan een nieuwe werkelijkheid en een diep gevoel van
verantwoordelijkheid voor het heden en de toekomst. Dit
soort actieve creativiteit krijgt nog meer relief als men
daarnaast de passieve productie ziet van puur esthetische
waarden, die, hoe respectabel ook binnen het eigen do-
mein, alleen de reflectie van een status quo weergeven.
De actieve, vormende en vindende geest, die karakteristiek
was voor de Poolse avantgarde rechtvaardigt het ten
voile om de kunstenaars, die in deze tentoonstelling ver-
tegenwoordigd zijn constructivisten te noemen. Hun
originele concepties gaan de historisch begrensde be-
tekenis van de term vaak te buiten. Maar juist deze over-
schrijding maakt het mogelijk nog eens te wijzen op de
morele achtergrond van het werkwoord construeren. In
deze samenhang houdt dit mede in het zoeken naar posi-
tieve waarden in poezie en schilderkunst, in kunst in het
dynamischen Stil in der Typographie, ein »technologi-
sches« Herangehen an Stadteplanung, eine Kunsterzie-
hung, die junge Leute auf die Anwendung moderner Tech-
nologien und neuzeitlicher Anforderungen der Gesellschaft
vorbereitet. DarOber hinaus hat er in seinen spateren
Jahren eine physiologische Einstellung zur Malerei propa-
giert, die die Reaktionen des Auges auf Lichtreize in Be-
tracht zieht.
Wie es scheint, verstehen heute z. B. die »minimal artists«
ihr Eindringen in die reale Umwelt ahnlich groBzOgig, und
zwar geht dies von Theater-Experimenten bis zur Land-
schaftsgestaltung.
Es sind dies alles keine Kompromisse oder klaffende
Risse in den angenommenen Programmen, sondern ein
Reflektieren Ober den Gedanken, daB es neben der neutra-
len Monotonie der Ebene eines unistischen Gema.Ides oder
neben der Neutralitat oder GleichgOltigkeit, die durch den
allgemeinen Begriff der »minimal art« vorausgesetzt wird,
auch noch andere Gebiete gibt, die als notwendige Ergan-
zung von seiten desselben KOnstlers bewuBtes und sorg-
faltiges Handeln erfordern.
Die polnische Avantgarde war auf logische und orga-
nische Weise durch viele Gemeinsamkeiten mit dem
kOnstlerischen Panorama Europas verbunden. Es gab da
Ahnlichkeiten, entwicklungsgeschichtliche Beziehungen,
oder manchmal auch polemische Auseinandersetzungen
zwischen polnischen KOnstlern und Pionieren der Avant-
garde-Kunst. Wirsollten hier auch die Haltung von Szczuka
gegenOber Tatlin, die Stellung, die Strzemir'lski gegen-
Ober Tatlin und Malevitsch einnahm, Stai:ewskis Stand-
punkt in der Kontroverse zwischen Mondrian und van
Doesburg, das Verhaltnis von Strzemir'lskis didaktischem
Programm zum Bauhaus, die Arbeiten der »Praesens«-
Gruppe von Architekten im Vergleich zu Le Corbusier usw.
erwahnen. Einige polnische KOnstler besaBen person-
liche Verbindungen zu der sowjetischen Avantgarde; an-
dere wiederum hatten mehr Kontakte mit Paris oder Berlin.
Strzemir'lskis Unismus-Theorie ist ein besonders interes-
santes Beispiel, weil sie einerseits eine WeiterfOhrung des
Malevitsch'schen Suprematismus ist und andererseits zu
diesem vollstandig im Gegensatz steht.
Ein weiteres Beispiel ist die auBerst originelle Leistung von
Katarzyna Kobro, zu deren mathematischen Experimen-
ten, angewandt auf die Anordnung des Raumes, nichts
Gleichwertiges existiert.
Einige konstruktivistische Gedanken scheinen zukOnftige
Entwicklungen vorauszuempfinden. So verstehen wir auch
heute die Erklarungen Szczukas Ober das Verhaltnis von
Kunst zu den Phanomenen, die wir als »Massenmedien«
bezeichnen: Staffelei-Malerei sollte neuen Kunstarten
Platz machen, fur die Vervielfaltigung keine unbedeutende
didaktische MaBnahme ist, sondern Prinzip. Dieser Ge-
danke wurde im Multiple verwirklicht. So entstand etwas,
das wir aus der Theorie Walter Benjamins kennen. Kunst
wurde ihrer »Aura« entkleidet und durch die mechanische
Reproduktion den Massen zur Verfugung gestellt.
In diesem Zusammenhang erscheint Szczuka, der 1927 im
Alter von 29 Jahren starb, nicht nur als ein Verfechter der
»Schonheit des Utilitarismus« und von gesellschaftlich
relevanter Kunst, sondern auch als ein Mann, der sich fur
die Folgen kOnstlerischer Entwicklungen interessierte, die
durch die wachsende Bedeutung der Massenmedien be-
einfluBt werden.
Trotz ihres retrospektiven Charakters ist die Ausstellung
zeitnah. Die KOnstler beschaftigen sich mit Problemen,
die immer noch aktuell sind. Auch im Fortschritt werden
sie einer standigen Reflexion unterworfen.
KOnstler gestalten unsere Umwelt: die urbanistischen
Projekte, die visuellen Kommunikations-Systeme, Wer-
bung, Typographie, die Szenerie von Massenveranstal-
tungen oder Fernsehprogrammen. Wenn wir die Bemu-
13
The present exhibition and its catalogue are a result of
the initiative and close collaboration of the Folkwang Mu-
seum in Essen, the Rijksmuseum Kroller-Mi.iller in Otterlo
and the Museum of Art in l6dz. On behalf of the Museum
of Art in l6dz I wish to thank very heartily Paul Vogt,
Dieter Hanisch and Rudolf Oxenaar for their benevolent
attention and personal involvement in the preparatory
work from the very outset and for welcoming the exposi-
tion in their museums. I also thank my numerous Polish
collaborators for their toils in preparing the exhibition and
the catalogue material.
Ryszard Stanislawski
algemeen. Kunst gezien als een laboratorium en als een
bran voor nieuwe ideeen. Het gaat erom iets te constru-
eren dat nog nooit bestaan heeft, iets dat vanuit de steer
van de geest zich materialiseert, object wordt, lets dat
open is om openheid vraagt.
Deze tentoonstelling en de catalogus zijn het resultaat
van een nauwe samenwerking tussen het Folkwang Mu-
seum te Essen, het Rijkmuseum Kroller-MOller te Otterlo
en het Muzeum Sztuki in l6dz. Namens het museum in
l6dz wil ik gaarne Paul Vogt, Dieter Hanisch en Rudolf
Oxenaar hartelijk danken voor hun bijzondere zorg en
persoonlijke aandacht bij het samenstellen van deze
tentoonstelling.
Tenslotte wil ik mijn medewerkers in Polen danken, die
zoveel werk hebben verzet om deze tentoonstelling en
vooral de catalogus mogelijk te maken.
Ryszard Stanistawski
hungen polnischer KOnstler vor dem Krieg in diesem Lichte
sehen (viele wurden wegen ihrer Progressivitat und be-
dauerlicher Umstande nicht verwirklicht}, sie mit gegen-
wartigen Anstrengungen vergleichen, so werden uns Ge-
meinsamkeiten auffallen, die aktive Einstellung der Welt
gegenuber mit der Tendenz zu einer grundlegenden und
zukunftsorientierten Veranderung der Wirklichkeit. Diese
Art aktiver Kreativitat kommt sogar noch deutlicher zum
Vorschein, wenn wir sie mit der lediglich passiven Her-
stellung von rein asthetischen Werten vergleichen, die -
wie anerkennenswert sie auch immer auf diesem Gebiet
sein mag - doch nur widerspiegelt, was vorhanden ist.
Die aktive, gestaltende und konstruktive Geisteshaltung,
die fur die Beteiligten an der Avantgarde-Bewegung in
Polen typisch ist, rechtfertigt - so glaube ich - alle auf
der Ausstellung Vertretenen mit der gemeinsamen Be-
zeichnung »Konstruktivisten« zu benennen. lhre ursprOng-
lichen Vorstellungen gehen oft Ober die historisch be-
grenzte, orthodoxe Bedeutung dieses Begriffs hinaus.
Aber dieses Erweiterung hat es uns gestattet, sogar noch
deutlicher den moralischen Hintergrund des Verbs »kon-
struieren« hervorzuheben. In diesem Zusammenhang be-
deutet dies die Bildung von positiv engagierten Werten
in Dichtung, Malerei und bildender Kunst, die ganz all-
gemein als Labor aufgefaBt wird, als Quelle neuer ldeen
und ihre Voraussetzung: im Bereich des Geistes und dem
materieller Objekte etwas zu schaffen, das noch nie da
war, etwas Entwicklungsfahiges, etwas, was nur mit inne-
rer Offenheit zu erreichen ist.
Die gegenwartige Ausstellung und der dazu gehorende
Katalog sind das Ergebnis intensiver und enger Zusam-
menarbeit zwischen dem Folkwang-Museum in Essen,
dem Rijks-Museum Kroller-MOller in Otterlo und dem
Museum Sztuki in l6dz. lch mochte im Namen des Muse-
um Sztuki in l6dz Paul Vogt, Dieter Hanisch und Rudolf
Oxenaar herzlich fur ihr lnteresse und ihren personlichen
Einsatz bei den Vorbereitungsarbeiten dieser Ausstellung
danken. Auch mochte ich meinen zahlreichen polnischen
Mitarbeitern fur ihre MOhe beim Vorbereiten dieser Aus-
stellung und dieses Katalogs danken.
Ryszard Stanistawski
15
Cat. 24 Kobro 1931
Translators' note

A reader of the texts by constructivist artists must be

warned against expecting any neat and consistent aesthe-
tic theory. Rather, it was a current comment to the artistic
and social endeavours of people deeply involved in what
they believed to be a totally new approach to art as an
integral (they would rather say, "organic") part of the more
universal effort to build up a new social and, implicitly,
national integrity. Those people were practical artists and
not sophisticated academic theory-mongers. Striving to
evolve a system of what they believed to be a philosophy
of art and life, they drew, sometimes awkwardly, from the
most sundry and often incompatible sources, without
always realizing the broader implications of the trends of
European mind they pillaged for inspiration, without much
care for terminological precision and, frequently, for
stylistic or even grammatical correctness.
Perhaps the most striking peculiarity of their style is the
emotive use of terms which are usually descriptive, even
though ambiguous, such as " construction" or "organicity".
There are also evident traces of the current workshop
jargon, normally used between artists and quite efficient
when resort can be made to a pointing finger, transformed
into a crude tool of the abstract discourse on the basic
assumptions of art.
But for all the deficiencies for which a pedantic mind could
blame them, they strove and suceeded to express their
ardent emotions towards art as a serious social concern ,
as well as their basic ideas and attitudes which form a part
of our own inherited background. The translator tried hard,
and he hopes that he has not failed completely, to convey
to a foreign reader their noble zeal, mainly by abstaining
from untimely intrusions upon the peculiarities, or even
obvious shortcomings, of their diction.
Piotr Graff

19

A Chronicle of the Polish Avantgarde
1913-1917 The beginnings of modern art in Poland
1913
- Cracow: the lllrd Exhibition of Independents in which
the would-be formists take part: Tytus Czyzewski, Andrzej
Pronaszko, Zbigniew Pronaszko, Jacek Mierzejewski,
Eugen iusz Zak. The aim of the Independents' Exhibition
is to introduce Polish art into the sphere of international
problems of contemporary art.
- The first documented analysis of recent French art
published in Polish (A. Basler, "Stare i nowe konwencje.
Od Cezanne' a do kubizmu" - Old and New Conventions .
From Cezanne to Cubism .).
1915
- Cubistic exper iments by Czyzewski and the brothers
Pronaszko .
1917-1922 Formists: expressionism, cubism, futurism,
dadaism
November 1917
- Cracow : the 1st Exhib ition of Polish Expressionists,
grouped in the " Society of Extreme Modernists" esta-
blished on the initiative of the Pronaszko brothers and
Czyzewski ; later on, they called themselves " the Polish For-
mists ". In the catalogue to the Exhib ition Zbigniew Pro-
naszko wrote: " . .. The content of a picture is form and
colour . . . The shape is accidental , as a reflection of na-
ture : it depends on c ircumstances and environment, while
form is const ant as a reflection of the creative process . . ."
January 1918
- Cracow : the first issue of the periodical " Maski", with
a prog ramme paper by Zbigniew Pronaszko "On Expres-
sionism ", w ith expressionistic accents beside typically
cubist ideas.
April 1918
- Poznan : t he first exhibition of expressionists of the
" Bunt " (Revolt) group, with Stan islaw Kubicki , Stefan
Szmaj, August Zamoyski and othe rs. In their statements
they developed ideas sim ilar to those of the early German
express ion ists .
20
1 Wladyslaw Strzeminski, Smolensk, 1921
July 1918
- Cracow: the llnd Exhibition of Polish Expressionists;
artists from Cracow and Poznan begin to think differently
about "form ism"; one year later it would be the official
name of the Cracow group . New members took part in the
exhibition, among them Leon Chwistek and Stanislaw
lgnacy Witkiewicz.
- Cracow: a futurist club is founded, »Galka Muszkato-
lowa " (Nutmeg Apple), grouping primarily poets. Among
the founders there was Czyzewski. The club was a con-
tinuation of the futurist cabaret "Katarynka", already ac-
tive for a year.
October 1918
- Cracow: the first issue of the Formist Group paper
appears, entitled " Formisci" .
- St. I. Witkieiwcz publishes a theoretical work on "Pure
Form" (" Nowe formy w malarstwie i wynikajqce stqd
nieporozumienia'').
1920
- The formistic ideas spread beyond Cracow, and a close
alliance of futurist painters and poets is started. In a
one day broadside "Gga " we read: " . .. The big rainbow
ape called dionysos is dead since long. We throw away
its rotten heritage. We avow : I. civilization, culture, with
their morbidity- to the rubbish pile, we chose simplemind-
edness - rudeness, gaiety, health, triviality, laughter .. .
on our own will we renounce dignity , solemnity, care ... "
June 1920
- Warsaw : the first exhibition of paintings by Mieczyslaw
Szczuka. The introduction to the catalogue, written pho-
netically against all rules of orthodox spelling, began with
the phrase: "Against petrification in ready made forms;
against the preferences of the spirit of convenience;
against those who digest all and those who are oversens i-
tive; against the identification of aesthetic delight with
pleasure ; against obscurantism , cunning, Gotham, ugh ,
against, against ... "
1921
- First disagreements among the formists . The high
point of the futurist movement and of the influence of
dadaism . First signs of constructivist ideas.
 2 Wtadystaw Strzeminski, Projekt for a railway station in
Gdynia, suprematism, 1923
September 1921
- Zakopane: St. I. Witkiewicz publishes a one-day broad-
side " Papierek lakmusowy " (Litmus Paper) , signed with a
polonized and paraphrased form of Duchamp's name :
Marceli Duchanski. He wrote in it: " . . . We must consider
the concept of Pure Blague as the ultimate notion. Lie and
Truth are so interwoven in the essence of man that to
present the former in its Pure Form (but in a different
form than you use , Mr Witkiewicz) means not to say a
single word of truth, not to make the smallest stroke in
earnest, not a single cut in clay - well , this is by no means
easy . It even seems to be impossible . But we, the pure-
blaguers , we are fond of impossibilities . Since now (11 a. m.,
13th of September , 1921) - no more, not any more -
the End.
Blagujemy, nous blaguons , wir blagiren , we are blaging .. ."
November 1921
- Cracow : the second one-day leaflet appears , entitled
"N6 z w Brzuchu" (A Knife in the Belly) , with statements
by Tytus Czyzewski, Bruno Jasienski, Aleksander Wat, L.
Chwistek . In the Introduction we can read: " The fat beast
of Polish art, stabbed with a knife in its belly , belched out
a gush of Futurism. Citizens , help us to tear off your worn
skins ... "
December 1921
- Wa rsaw : an exh ibition of Mieczystaw Szczuka , Henryk
Stazewski , Edmund Miller , The first abstract works were
displayed ; the reviews mentioned compositions made of
wire , wood , iron and glass and moving mechanisms .
1922-1924 Break up of the formist movement. Changes
of orientation among futurists. Setting forth of the main
problems of constructivism.
March 1922
- Cracow: Chwistek , an ex-form ist , published a book,
entitled : " Tytus Czyzewski and the Crisis of Formism ".
He remarked in it : " ... Ex-formists have either left the main
scene, or they took the path of reason " .
- Tytus Czyzewski , in a volume of poems " Noc-Dz ien.
Mechaniczny instynkt elektryczny ", declared in the futu-
rist spirit, but with new overtones: "We shall build ma-
chines - we'll go to the stars to observe the sun . The sun
· w ill wonder , how man could become so wise . Man will
build a mechanical sun. The old sun is an old good-
hearted machine . . ."
May 1922
- Cracow: The first issue of "Zwrotnica" was published,
a periodical edited by Taduesz Peiper. In the editorial, he
wrote: " .. . A struggle for progress, abundance, joy will
begin . There will be war without bloodshed. A factory will
become a tank of peace. In this wrestle, the alliance with
time, with our time, will be the condition of victory, and
thus a commandment. In the Russ ian darkness an idea
has glown , blind and lunatic , but reaching with a shadow
of its quivering wings beyond the frontiers of its mother-
land . Its influence is marked in the life of all societies.
The forms of human coexistence have changed, and the
effects of that change w ill certainly involve the whole sur-
face of our life . .. A new epoch begins: the epoch of an
embrace w ith the present . . ."
- Dusseldorf : Henryk Berlewi who studied in Germany,
participates in the International Congress of Progres-
sive Art.
November 1922
- Cracow : In " Zwrotnica ", remarks on the post - revolutio-
nary Soviet avantgarde by Wtadystaw Strzeminski, who
came to Poland from the Soviet Union in the spring of
that year. It was the first exhaustive analysis of the achieve-
ments of Sov iet constructivism , vividly evoking the stormy
atmosphere of artistic discussion .
February 1923
- Cracow: Szczuka published his first theoretical state-
ment in " Zwrotnica" , being a declaration of a constructi-
vist conscious of the new problems .
May-June 1923
- Vilna : An Exh ibition of New Art: the first purely con-
structivist exhibition. Seven art ists took part in it: Witold
Kaj ruksztis , Karol Krynski , Maria Puciatycka, Mieczystaw
Szczuka , Henryk Stazewski , Wtadystaw Strzeminski, Te-
resa Zarnower. The catalogue encouraged "to obtain
new elements fo r construction" , "to employ unused ma-
terials (iron , glass , cement)", and on the other hand it
emphasized that "there is nothing in a picture except
what is there : direct interaction of plastic forms organized
into a single whole - a product of art"; also it st ressed
21

the necessity of a strict union of new art and revolutionary
social issues.
December 1923
- Berlin : An exhibition of Szczuka and Zarnower in the
Der Sturm gallery. Herwarth Walden wrote: "Among the
works on display , beside purely abstract ones, there were
projects for monuments for Zamenhoff, Liebknecht and
Dostoyevsky , also stage designs .. ."
- Warsaw : Berlewi came back to Poland after almost two
years of stay in Berlin.
1924 Intensification of constructivist activities.
Formulation of principles. Elaboration of theories.
March 8, 1924
- The first issue of BLOK appeared, the theoretical or-
gan of Polish constructivists . The new orientation was
defined: " . .. A product of technology , the more perfect is
the less space it leaves for art and artist. As soon as
art approaches utility , it cancels itself. Constructivism
does not attempt to imitate the machine , but to construct
each thing accord ing to its own principles - and thus
it is as log ical as the machine in its domain ... "
March 14, 1924
- Warsaw: Berlewi opened an exhibition of abstract works
being a realization of his theoretical assumptions pre-
sented in " Mechano-Faktur ", in the Austro-Daimler Auto-
mobile Salon. Berlewi 's tex t was publ ished as a separate
booklet.
March 15, 1924
- Warsaw : Opening of the f irst exhibition of the BLOK
group in the Laurin-Clement Automobile Salon. Works in
the purist spirit and abstract paintings by eight artists
were shown: Kajruksztis, Kobro, Krynski, Stai:ewski,
Szczuka, Zarnower , Szulc.
April 1924
- Warsaw : An essay by Kasimir Malevich "On art" was
published in BLOK , continued in consecutive issues.
September 1924
- Warsaw : In No 6/ 7 of BLOK was published a pro-
gramme statement " What is Constructivism", emphasizing
22
3 Katarzyna Kobro , Moscow, c.1919
the necessity to integrate artistic problems with social
issues.
December 1924
- Warsaw: The first more extensive formulation of the
principles of the unistic theory by Strzeminski in an article
"B = 2" in BLOK.
- Warsaw: Berlewi and two poets, Brucz and Wat, foun-
ded an advertising company "Reklama-Mechano " for de- ·
signing graphic patterns and slogan texts for trade adver-
tisements.
- Warsaw: Some artists of BLOK took part in an exhibi-
tion in the Polish Artists Club: Maria Niez-Borowiak, Sta-
i:ewski, Szczuka, Zarnower.
- Bucharest , Brussels, Riga, BLOK artists participated in
international exhibitions of modern art.
1925-1929 The second phase of development of Polish
constructivism. Problems of architecture extended (func-
tionalism). A search for the laws of construction of a pic-
ture (unism). Elimination of easel painting (utilitarianism,
productivism).
January 1925
- Warsaw: disruption in the BLOK group; an ever deeper
antagonism between Strzeminski and Szczuka.
April 1925
- Warsaw: No 10 of BLOK was wholly devoted to archi-
tecture and theatre. Szczuka wrote on this occasion:
" . . . the so-cal led plastic arts remain directly dependent
on building, which most conspicuously unites in itself
utilitarian content and aesthetic surplus ... "
- t.6dz: Karol Hiller designed a poster and interior deco-
rations for the "Workers' Stage", an amateur theatre, revo-
lutionary in its repertoire and staging methods . The theatre
was managed by Witold Wandurski, a poet , stage writer,
and communist.
March 1926
- Warsaw : An International Exhibition of Modern Archi-
tecture . The last issue of BLOK was wholly devoted to a
presentation of works exhibited there. Among the fore-
most Soviet and Western European avantgarde architects ,
there were also Polish ones : Piotr Kozicki , Antoni Kar-
4 Katarzyna Kobro, Structure , 1920
czewski, Bohdan Lachert, Szymon Syrkus, Mieczystaw
Szczuka, Jozef Szanajca , Teresa Zarnower.
June 1926
- Warsaw: the first issue of the periodical "Praesens"
appeared. It was mainly devoted to architecture , advocat-
ing "functionalism" . The programme was announced in a
paper by the initiator and editor of the magazine, Szymon
Syrkus, ent itled "Estimates of Architecture". Among the
Praesens-group artists were ex-Blok members (except
Szczuka, :Z:arnower, and Strzemirisk i, who would later
approach Praesens for a short whi le}, as well as architects,
among them Lachert and Szanajca . We read in the first
issue: "Form as an objective is 'art' or artism, while today
these words are almost meaningless for us. What we are
pursuing, is not form , but architecture, the new composi-
tional laws for building habitation apparatuses and collec-
tive life apparatuses . . ."
September 1926
- Warsaw: The first exhibition of the Praesens group;
participants: Brukalski, Lachert, Syrkus , Szanajca (archi-
tects) and Kobro, Kryriski, Niez-Borow iak, Stazewski,
Strzemiriski , Podsadecki, Rafatowski (painters).
March 1927
- Warsaw : Szczuka founded a magaz ine "Dzwignia". The
editorial introduction defined the Marxist attitude of the
periodical. The paper by Szczuka : "Garden-Houses in
Garden Cities" published in No 1, was a development of
the artist's earlier concepts concerning the necessity of
linking an individual building with a larger urban whole.
- Moscow : Karczewski, Kozicki , Szczuka and Zarnower
took part in an International Exhibition of Modern Archi-
tecture.
- Warsaw : Szczuka designed a typographical arrange-
ment and a photographic montage for the poem by Anatol
Stern "Europe " .
March-April 1927
- Warsaw : An exhib ition of paintings by Malevich in the
Polish Artists Club. The artist, on his way to Berlin, lec-
tured in Warsaw in the Polish language on the actual
situation in art.
April 1927
- Warsaw: one -man exhibition of Strzemiriski in the Po-
lish Artists Club , with several un istic works beside those
in cubis t spirit. During the exhibition the artist lectured
on the principles of his theory of unism.
July 1927
- Warsaw: In "Dzwignia" Szczuka published his last pa-
per, extensively discussing the issues of modern art in
a social context, entitled "Art and Reality".
July 1927
- Warsaw: In the monthly "Droga" Strzemiriski published
a mature formulation of his unistic theory in an article
orig inally entitled " Dualism and Unism".
August 13, 1927
- Zakopane: Szczuka died during a climbing tour in the
Tatra Mountains .
December 1927
- Prague: Artists of the Praesens group: Niez-Borowiak,
Rafatowski, Stazewski and others, took part in an Exhibi-
tion of Polish Contemporary Art.
1928
-Warsaw: Strzemiriski's "Unism in Painting" was pub-
lished as a separate volume of the Praesens Library.
Typography by Stazewski.
March 1928
- Warsaw: The exhibition "Modernist Salon" was opened,
grouping the whole avantgarde: constructivists with Ber-
lewi, Hiller, Kobro, Niez-Borowiak, M.J . Malicki, Kajruk-
sztis, Stazewski, Strzemiriski, functional architects: St. Bru-
kalski, Lachert , Syrkus , Szanajca; ex-formists: Czyzewski,
A. Pronaszko , Winkler and others . Malevich participated
in the exhibition. In the catalogue it was stated: " .. . Today
let us try to understand contemporary art - its necessity
is above all the need of constructing - which molds the
imagination of the . new man .. ." . In this exhibition Hiller
showed his first abstract works, and among them the
" Composition O". At the same time the artist began his
experiments with heliography - a new technique uniting
the process of development of a photographie negative
23

and of photochemical printing, and involving an element
of chance.
Oktober 1928
- Paris: Polish artists of the Praesens group were offered
a separate room in the Autumn Salon; Malicki, Nicz-
Borowiak, Stazewski, Strzeminski and others showed
their works.
December 1928-March 1929
- Brussels, Hague, Amsterdam: a group of artists of the
Praesens circle participated in an official exhibition of
Polish art in these three cities.
May 1929
- Poznan : opening of the Universal National Exhibition.
Architects belonging to the Praesens group designed a few
pavilions and interior decorations, the latter together with
the painters of the group. In the Art Section of the Exhibi-
tion the Praesens group had its own separate room in
which works by Malicki, Niez-Borowiak, Stazewski and
Strzeminski were displayed. It was the last collective
appearance of constructivists and the end of their colla-
boration. It was a summing up of their achievements , and
at the same time it revealed the first symptoms of aesthe-
ticism and decorativeness in their abstract works, at odds
with their doctrine . Discussions during the realization of
pavilions and interiors ended in a split between painters
and architects of the Praesens group. After the exhibition
some artists went away from constructivism (Malicki, Nicz-
Borowiak), architects focused their attention on technical
problems of their trade (Lachert, Syrkus , Szanajca), while
some of the painters founded a new group "a. r." (revolu-
tionary artists , Kobro, Stazewski, Strzeminski) seeking for
a new integration of constructivist problems.
1929-1934 New problems of constructivism: architec-
tural space; anti-unism in typography; artistic education;
social utopias. Criticism of constructivism from the posi-
tion of socialist realism. The new avantgarde.
June 1929
- Warsaw: Kobro, Stazewski and Strzeminski leave the
Praesens group.
24
5 "UNOVIS" group , Witebsk, 1920
June-December 1929
- Koluszki, Warsaw, Cieszyn : Strzeminski founded a new
artistic group " a. r.". The three artists from Praesens were
later joined by two poets, Jan Brz~kowski and Julian
Przybos.
- t.6dz: early talks of Strzeminski with Przectaw Smolik,
a town councilor, about the establishment of an Interna-
tional Collection of Modern Art in the Museum of Art in
t.odz.
- Warsaw : publication of the poem " Europa " by Anatol
Stern in Szczuka's typography.
January 1930
- Lw6w: the first exhibition of a new group "Artes" to
which young artists belonged, among them pupils of the
Academie Moderne in Paris managed by Leger and Ozen-
fant: Henryk Streng, later signing his works as Marek
Wtodarski, and Otto Hahn, and other painters from Lw6w:
Jerzy Janisch, Aleksander Krzywobtocki, Mieczystaw
Wysocki, Ludwik Lille. When the group was founded, its
members adhered to an art close to surrealism; in subse-
quent years they accepted the postulates of socialist
realism. In the latter phase Hahn wrote: " ... The painting
that is coming will be most certainly realist in its content,
concept and appearance. (. . .) The plot will assume more
significance, and along with it a motive will come back.
Motives will not be drawn from the old reservoir of paint-
ing, as in surrealism, but from plain everyday life. Tenden-
tions art, now condemned will be permitted. This plain
painting for the plain man will turn its back to the elite
and the connoisseurs; it will climb down from its pedestal
and merge with the background - destined for the simple
man , intelligible to all. It will become the expression of
the average face of our epoch ... "
February 1930
- Koluszki; Cieszyn: the first formulation of the " a. r."
group programme in the correspondence of Strzeminski
and Przybos.
March 1930
- Cieszyn: A book of poems by J. Przybos " Z ponad " was
published as the first volume of the new "a. r. Library",
with typography by W. Strzeminski. It was the most exten-
sive typographical work by the artist.
 z

I
s

Wfadysfaw Strzeminski, Cover of the book by Tadeusz

_ Peiper, Sz6sta sz6sta, Zwrotnica, Library, 1926
6 Wtadystaw Strzeminski, l6dz, c.1932
- The first communication of "a. r." was printed as an
insert to the book of poems "Z ponad". It contained the
programme assumptions of the group in the form of short
slogans. We read in it: " ... 'a. r.' fights for art based on
laws as unshakable as the laws of nature ( ... ) 'a. r.' an-
nounces: organic construction, logic of form and of
construction as implied by the logic of the raw material;
architecture is a composition of movements in space,
architecture of designs that transport man (... ) Spatial
sculpture linked with the space instead of the pillar with
four far;:ades: poetry: a unity of vision condensed to a ma-
ximum of imaginative allusions and a minimum of words( ... )
'a. r.' builds art on the principles of terseness, elimination,
concentration. A work of art is a result of calculation of
the aesthetic elements (... ). Modern art is a revolution of
the former emotive attitudes."
- l6dz: in March, the printing of the book by Kobro and
Strzeminski "Composition of Space, Calculation of Spatio-
Temporal Rhythm" was finished, but the printing of the
reproductions was delayed and thus the book was circu-
lated only in 1931, as the second volume of the '"a.r.'
Library".
- l6dz: Stazewski brought from Paris the first paintings
for the Modern Art Collection of the "a. r.'' group, which
formed the germ of the rich section of modern art in the
Museum of l6dz. Pictures by Serge Charchoune and Joa-
quin Torres-Garcia were the first to arrive.
April 1930
- Paris: Stazewski participated in the first Paris exhibi-
tion of the international group "Cercle et Carre" in the
Galerie 23.
July 1930
- Koluszki: Strzeminski began to prepare the second
communication of the "a. r.'' group.
September 1930 till June 1931
- Koluszki: Strzeminski and Kobro taught at the Industrial
School in Koluszki, realizing their own curriculum, draw-
ing from the educational principles of Bauhaus, VKHUTE-
MAS and INKHUK.
February 15, 1931
- l6dz: an agreement was signed by P. Smolik, a town
councillor of the city of l6dz and W. Strzeminski as a re-
presentative of the "a. r." group concerning the placing
of the International Collection of Modern Art in the Mu-
seum of l6dz.
- A room for modern art was opened in the Museum; the
exhibited collection consisted by that time of 21 pictures
by Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Enrico Prampolini, Serge Char-
choune, Jean Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Sophie Tauber-Arp,
Louis Marcoussis and others.
- Warsaw: Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, inspired
by the poem "Europa" by Anatol Stern and Szczuka,
made the first experimental film in Poland, under the same
title, using a photo-collage technique.
January 1932
- l6dz: Hiller exhibited for the first time five heliographic
compositions in an exhibition of the Plastic Artists Asso-
ciation.
March 1932
- l6dz: A catalogue of the International Collection of
Modern Art was published, recording 75 works belonging
to the Collection by that time. In 1932 the paintings, until
than being a deposit of the "a. r." group, were donated
the Museum of Art in l6dz.
May 1932
- l6dz: Strzeminski won the yearly artistic award of the
city of l6dz . The granting of a high prize, with national
prestige, to an avantgarde artist, brought about sharp
press polemics .
July 1932
- Lw6w: A New Generation exhibition in which partici-
pated: Chwistek, Hiller, Stazewski, Strzeminski with three
unistic compositions, and others.
December 1932
- l6dz: the second communication of the "a. r." group
appeared, being a development of the postulates of the
first communication towards a more radical social pro-
gramme. In this communication we find the project of the
so-called "'a. r.' alphabet", an original suggestion of Strze-
minski to unify and simplify type design on geometrical
principles.
27
1933
- l6dz: Exhibition of typography, organized by Strze-
minski, with participation of Tschichold, Schwitters and
others.
April 1933
- l6dz: Strzeminski published his theoretical considera-
tions on "functional printing", being a generalization of his
experiences in typography and of his lectures since 1932
in the vocational school for printers in l6dz.
May 1933
- l6dz: The first issue of an art magazine "Forma", an
enterprise of local artists. Hiller became the editor and
Strzeminski was on the board.
June 1933
- Warsaw: an exhibition of an ephemeral Group of Mo-
dern Plastic Artists, attempting a new integration of the
whole Polish avantgarde. Among the painters who partici-
pated were: Chwistek, Czyzewski, Hiller, Krynski, Rafa-
towski, Stazewski and Strzeminski.
October 1933
- Lw6w: The first exhibition of the Cracow Group, a new
association of artists grouping young people from Cracow,
the majority of them being members of the Communist
Association of Polish Youth. Beside the initiators - Leo-
pold Lewicki, Henryk Wicinski, Jonasz Stern - also Sasza
Blonder, Maria Jarema, Stanislaw Osostowicz, Aleksander
Winnicki and others belonged to the group. The program-
me of the Cracow Group, like that of "Artes" in Lw6w, em-
phasized its slogans of social radicalism, uniting the new
concept of artistic avantgarde with imitative art, verging
on the borderline between a peculiar variety of surreal-
ism, phantasy and socialist realism. Constructivism and
experiences related to abstract painting, even if they were
taken up, had no real significance in that circle.
December 1933
- Lw6w: M. Kotlicki attacked the "a. r." group for the lack
of "class" approach towards art in its programme and
activities as required by the proletariat. Thereby he pointed
out that its slogans of social revolution are right-winged
and express the mind of bourgeois intelligentsia, alien to
28
the new leftist avantgarde adhering to the principles of
socialist realism.
- Lw6w: Wojciechowski, a member of "Artes", attempts
to disseminate the principles of " constructivist realism"
publication followed in 1935) as being an abandonment
of constructivist abstraction towards imitative and socially
engaged painting .
1934 The last years - 1936 of Polish constructivism
Attacks of the young avantgarde, champions of surrealism
and of the early version of socialist realism, begin to
dominate over the scattered constructivist avantgarde in
crisis. Artists representing the latter would now only
sporadically step forward.
January 1934
- l6dz: Strzeminski in discussion with Kotlicki, defending
the "a. r." position: " ... the aim of our endeavours - he
wrote - is culture from the world of organized labour.
Therefore we set forth those emotional attitudes which
are expected to link our reflexes, dreams and ideals to pro-
duction. Our starting point is not the superior concept of
art, but social utility as its organizing function. Only in
this way the prevailing dualism can be overcome between
the high priesthood of art and mean work for wages. E.g.,
the plastic arts, after the phase of abstract painting and
the attainment of objective methods of molding any form,
are already now able, under appropriate organizational
conditions, to collaborate most strictly with utilitarian pro-
duction. Both have the same methods to solve pro-
blems ... ".
- l6dz: a collective volume "On Modern Art" by Brz~-
kowski, Chwistek, Smolik and Strzeminski was published.
The article by Strzeminski was an attempt at a generaliza-
tion of the history of the Polish avantgarde from the con-
structivist vantage point.
February 1934
- Warsaw: An exhibition of Strzem inski and Stazewski
in which the artists did not display any more their unistic
and abstract paintings.
September 1934
- l6dz: In "Forma" Hiller published his considerations
concerning heliography as a new graphic technique.
Wtadystaw Strzeminski and Katarzyna Kobro at the Baltic
sea, 1932
7 Katarzyna Kobro with her daughter Nika, l6dz, c. 1938
He wrote : "Artists have frequently made use of photo
sensitive paper employed in photography as a means
to obtain monochromatic pictures without a camera. Pho-
tograms by Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray and others obtained
in this manner, have considerably extended the range of
tones in monochromatic graphics by introducing subtle
"sfumata" and bold chiaroscuro effects But still, the photo-
gram has remained an experiment, because no new man-
ner of graphic art has developed out of it ... "
- Lw6w : in a one-man exhibition in the Rozmaitosci
Theatre in Lw6w, Strzeminski showed a set of paintings
similar to those exhibited in Warsaw, without unistic com-
positions among them.
December 1934
- Lw6w: Strzeminski and Chwistek discussed the mean-
ing and social function of new art; the discussion was
published in "Forma". Strzeminski: " .. . Economic libera-
lism has been based on the plurality of activities. As a
consequence, we have the search for painting with a va-
riety and richness of form. I do not believe unism to be a
past affair, because it is now the main call of the epoch.
The striving for a uniform organization is the most pro-
found and universal impulse of our time. It constitutes the
social basis of unism ... " Chwistek: " .. . Un ism is an un-
masking of idealism, a stripping bare of its shameful parts
and of the death hidden on its bottom. Therein lies its
greatness. But I think that we should not be satisfied with
this discovery ... The power of experience consists in the
discovery of a new reality, such as we want to have,
such as we can dream about, simply because of our cer-
tainty that reality is born by dreams. The more perfect
and wisely arranged our life is, the more strongly we yearn
for the unrealized whims of childhood, even if it had been
a journey to the moon. Out of this yearning inventions are
born and the development of the strict sciences is based
upon it. Why should it not determine the development of
art? ... "
1935
- l6dz: Hiller joined the League for the Defence of Hu-
man and Citizen Rights, thus engaging himself in current
politics.
January 1936
- l6dz: Kobro published an extensive statement on art,
entitled " Functionalism ", being the theoretical summary
of her artistic career.
1936
- Lw6w: Streng (Wtodarski) announced the assumptions
of what he called " facto-realism": " ... New realism does
not want for itself the role of a veil or curtain, with nature
deformed in some way or another lingering behind it. Its
task is to express truly the new arising world , for a power-
ful new trophy is already inherent in it: the new contents.
Therefore the new realism resorts to the forces which
come from the social lowlands, to the organized masses
of workers and peasants , for it is this class with its assump-
tions that constitutes the avantgarde of the new cul-
ture .. ."
- Warsaw: the first exhibition of the "Warsaw Group "
(Franciszek Bartoszek, Mieczystaw Berman , Z. Bobowski
and others). The programme of the group was presented
in five paragraphs:
"1. The Group wishes to give plastic expression to the
strivings and ideals of the world of labour.
2. The group is opposed against the 'art for art's sake'
slogans and against the attempts of reaction to subordi-
nate art to its purposes.
3. The group postulates art with literary themes.
4. The group wishes to offer a plastic description of the
whole contemporary society from the point of view of the
world of labour.
5. The group accepts the necessity to strive for most
broadly conceived realism. It subordinates the plastic
technique to the literary theme."
Andrzej Turowski
29

The Polish Revolutionary Avantgarde
(Constructivism)
The end of the first World War brought back to Poland its
independence as a sovereign state. In the atmosphere of
all-national zeal and optimism, it was natural for young
artists to believe that an era of new art began. Such was
the background of the first post-war artistic movement,
no longer haunted by bondage, oriented towards the fu-
ture and modernity, but secure about its predecessors.
The name it chose for itself was Form ism. The formist artists
were fond of referring to cubism, though an expressionist
note could be heard behind formulations in the spirit of
J . Metzinger ; they also searched for a native tradition and
adhered to the poems by the Romantic bard, Adam Mickie-
wicz, though more intimate to them was the faith that the
essence of a native Polish style lay in the primitive folk
art. The revolt in art was conceived as an experiment in
the domain of form ; the artistic revolution was by no
means a social one. The problems of society were inter-
preted in terms of the nation, and a renewal was sought
for it, well supported by the tradition and by the folk-
styled form.
The formistic unity came to be broken by the violent in-
trusion of the dynamic and iconoclastic slogans of futurist
poets into the realm of the undisturbed inquiries into art.
A criticism of the bourgeoisie became the new platform of
social communication, while painting was substituted by
the freedom of an unhampered gesture and shocking
scandal.
In such a situation, when constructivism had been grad-
ually revealing its existence between 1922 and 1923, it had
to overcome , on the one hand, the formistic conception
of a picture, and on the other hand, the futurist idea of
society as a frightful and terrifying, but at the same time
fascinating mob. Constructivism opposed the concept of
construction against the notion of form , referring it to the
integral field of works of art and of social reality. " For the
formists", wrote Z. Pronaszko, "a shape is accidental as an
expression of nature ; it depends on circumstances and
environment, while form is constant as an expression of
creation " 1 • Out of the chaotic shapes of nature, there
emerges an orderly form, imposing the models for the
making of styles: form as a canon that apprehends and
brings order into the world and regularity into the work .
Both the formists and constructivists agreed that art
30
8 Katarzyna Kobro, l6dz, 1932
realized order, but while for the former it was believed to
be expressed in style as an unchanging attribute of dura-
tion, the latter conceived it as revealed in the organic
structure as the expression of functioning. Style had to
be marked by form; an organism had its construction. In a
programme statement of the Blok group we read: " Con-
structivism does not aim at the creation of a style as an
unchanging established pattern based upon invented
forms , accepted once and for all, but it undertakes the
problem of construction that may and has got to be sub-
ject to continuous change and perfection ... " 2 •
The formistic form was realized by "concentration, appre-
hension, synthesis". The constructivist construction point-
ed to the " whole" through the relationships inherent
in it. Let us emphasize: form was a synthesis; construction
was a whole. Form apprehends the "essence of things
and phenomena"; construction grasps the structure and
its laws .
According to Szczuka who followed Tatlin in his reasoning,
we cannot define an object in terms of style, for as a result
of the process of labour it is an accomplished whole and,
as such, it is identical with the product. In consequence,
the only way in which it can be apprehended, is in terms
of utility and purpose.
According to Strzeminski , if a picture is to realize its laws,
it must come to its unity by an elimination of the differ-
ence between figure and background. A plastic whole is
not forms against a background, but a unified plane of the
canvas. Perception of elements differs from perception
of the whole.
The formistic form remained outside of society, offering
it only an opportunity of contemplation. The futurist vision
of the broad and threatening mass or mob was a weapon
in the anti bourgeois programme . But the constructivist idea
of building or construction saw the condition of a recon-
ciliation in the union with society and an inner unity. In
the first year of development of Polish constructivism,
Peiper wrote: "Organicity which is best known to us from
social physiology, will become the inspiration for artistic
construction. A work of art will be socially organized . A
work of art will be the society" 3 . A few years later, by the
end of the constructivist period, Strzeminski, in his dis-
cussion with Chwistek, was able to define the new plat-
form less ambiguously when he said: "A striving for a uni-
form organization is the deepest and most universal im-
pulse of our time . It is the social background of unism" 4 •

It is only in this context that we are able to understand
the attitude of constructivists who were not satisfied
t hat " formism founded itself upon an essent ial criticism
of the form and content relation and established above
all an absolute primacy of the former " 5 • For constructivists,
there was no such alternative at all: the problems of both
form and content were incorporated into the idea of
construction as a unity. According to Stai:ewski , "form
and contents are an organic and indissoluble whole, being
two sides of one and the same thing" 6 • Constructivism
found a uniformity of construction not on ly in an isolated
work of art, but also in the integrated levels of art and
society . Like form and content , so art and society are
" an organic and indissoluble whole " .
We can hardly speak about a simple evolution from form-
ism to futurism and constructivism. As we can see, the
differences lay not only in terminology. Different social
facts were underlying each of these positions and led to
different ideas of being and of the ways of its cognition.
The differences involved the basic outlooks .
Let us take a look at the structure of a constructivist work .
Its in itial stratum was constituted by the means or ele-
ments applied in art ; at the second level there were rela-
tions between those means or elements. The first stratum
thus involved materials and shapes; though there was
much talk about new materials , the actual variety was
rather poor: iron , glass , cement and textile fabrics. As to
shapes , Strzemir'lski was rigourous only about the geo-
metrical shape of a picture. More attention was paid to
the quality of the materials . Stress was laid on their en-
durance and resistance, transparency, glow etc ., and in
the next place, their standardization, measurab ility, uni-
fication, precision , availability. The meaning of a work of
art was embodied neither in one nor in the other of the
two levels , but in the manner of transit ion from one to the
other , in the process of making the means dependent on
functional relations . The process itself was based on the
principle of construction . The concept of construction was
perhaps most close to an idea of some abstract cosmic
directive that would find its theoretical extension in the
systems . Construction was the principle, while a system
was its tentative realization. The ultimate aim of a system
was to formulate a principle for the integral whole of a
work, or for its building. The building is a concretizat ion
of a system in a work of art. The artistic process was not
a simple sequence from the stratum on which the elements
9 W!adys!aw Strzemir'lski, l6di:, 1935
appear up to the level of their being linked together, but
the making of the means and of their relations interdepen-
dent in a manner that was functional with respect to the
building ; it was the process of constructing as a concreti-
zation of construction 7 •
On the level of an individual constructivist work, the oppo-
sition was not between form and content as the objec-
tive and subjective aspects, but between construction
and building as two equally active perspectives in which
the same reality was apprehended , as its identity was
const ituted in the artistic process of constructing. Cor-
responding to it on the level of Weltanschauung existed
no longer an antagonism between a creative subject and
the universe, but a " unity" of culture conceived as a set
of productive ventures 8 , in the last resort establishing the
constructive unity of art and society .
Within such a theoretical framework, the meaning of the
editorial published in the second issue of Blok becomes
clear: " Blok represents people who form a battle group
united by the catchword of absolute construction. How-
ever , in the group there are different directions represent-
ed by the particular collaborators of our periodical" 9 • What
separated the constructivists, were not minor deviations
in the idea of construction, but the variety of the systems
leading to a creation. The principle was the same, but
the rationalizations were different. We can list the system
of unism by Strzemir'lski, Stazewski 's system of contrasts,
Berlewi 's system of equivalents , the functional systems of
Strzemir'lski , Kobro and Syrkus , the utilitarian system of
Szczuka.
Let us take a look at the two most extreme systems, so as
to define their common and divergent features: the sys-
tem of unism by Strzemir'lski and the utilitarian system by
Szczuka. Underlying Strzemir'lski 's system was the prin-
ciple of the double un ity of a picture, negatively defined
by the elimination of the illusion of space and time as
non-plastic categories. The principle resulted from both
visual and intel lectual experience , leading ._to the con-
tention that there is no other space in a picture than
that which situates it in the world like all other objects;
the only space of a picture is its surroundings. There is
also no other time in it than that which witnesses its dura-
tion , similar as it is to all other things. By taking away
all imaginative and symbolic qualities from painting,
Strzemir'lski established the neutrality of a unistic picture.
By pointing to the primary conditions of existence, he
31

w Sztuki " (Exhibition of New Art), Wilno 1923
h
a y
t 11 p.12 and 13 from cat. Wilno, 1923, Text and typography
a s
I
0 t
g a
-w
y
i
·;,r§
q
• I'~
"'0-1,
Oruk. ., LUX ", Wilno.
realized existence . The system of unism constituted a work
of art which formulated within itself its own theory. On this
level of artistic structure, we can define a unistic work as
autothematic , directed towards itself, formulating and
embodying its own laws. However, it did not undermine
the definition of a picture but attacked its functions. On the
other hand, by drawing the zero point for painting, he
established a union between a work of art and all the
other objects. The purist absolutism of such a work of art
led in effect to its reification .
The starting point in Szczuka's conception was a negation
of the aesthetic rather than of the symbolic function of an
artistic utterance. The substitution of utility for beauty
made art into an object in a similar sense as with Strze-
minski. Where Strzeminski focused the attention on the
picture, Szczuka 's emphasis was on material; the essence
of the contention between the two artists could be re-
duced to reciprocally spurious charges: that of producing
"art for art's sake" and that of using up "material for ma-
terial's sake". The charges, however, were spurious only
as to their derogatory load. But they were sound within
the constructivist doctrine as applied to the puristic pro-
blems of 20th century art. In Strzeminski, the focus upon
the picture led to the apprehension of its homo geneity as
opposed to the other artistic genres, utterances and ob-
jects. The contrasting of materials, or of particular pic-
tures, emphasized by Szczuka, led to the bringing out of
their peculiar qualities in their own context. But as both
artists rejected the plastic illusion and the aesthetics of
beauty from among the artistic functions of a work of art,
an artistic object became equal with any object what-
ever and thus art became cut off from art and material
from material. A similar bent could be observed on a
different level - that of the structure of their Weltan-
schauung.
The identification of a work of art with an object or, as
we have said earlier, with a product, corresponds with the
productivist conception of the artistic process, . as a con-
sequence of the peculiar cognitive attitude of the two
artists. Strzeminski analysed a picture as a product of an
artistic activity. A work of art as an object was subject to
visual experience and controlled, in the process of its
making , by the results of that experience. Thereby the act
and the object of cognition were one and the same thing,
similarly as in the neopositivist doctrine. The aim of such
cognition was the process in which it realized itself; pro-
32
10 Witold Kajruksztis , Cover of " Katalog Wystawy Nowej
by Witold Kajruksztis
duction and cognition became identical, but it was the
former which provided the terms in which the latter was
accounted for. On the level of social reality, the status of
an artist was changed accordingly. He was now a pro-
ducer and an executive; what he did was by no means
different from what was done by a worker or engineer
in Ford's system quoted by Strzeminski, or from labour in
industrial workshops postulated by Szczuka. The functions
of artistic schools were changed, too, as was exemplified
by the curriculum realized by Strzeminski at Koluszki; the
definition of a museum was also modified (cf. the collec-
tion of modern art in l6dz) as it became a site of experi-
ments rather than of affective experiences.
Underlying such a concept of cognition was a definite idea
of reality. According to these artists, reality is not given
once and for all, but it is a continuous process and it
must be subject to changes brought about by the pres-
sure of new conditions and problems; reality is some-
thing that is functioning. The interrelations within it have
their synergically conjugated consequences. All individua-
lism is something alien to the contemporary epoch; it
excludes the relationships on which progress is based.
Only collective effort is legitimate. Progress is determined
by the most efficient tools or systems facilitating it. Such
systems must be economic and rational, or they should
warrant the artist an attainment of his goal by the most
simple manipulations.
In such a vision of the world, the key concept is construc-
tion conceived as a directive and as a function. It marks
the products of the world (considered as so many cases
of building) and, as a norm of production, it is a feature
of activity (constructing) undertaken in the world. Such a
conception found its justification in its possible relations
to society. The artists emphasized that production satis-
fied social requirements, determined social processes,
took place in a social space. While all constructivist
activity must involve constructing as its organizing prin-
ciple, on the other hand its soc ial character is defined
by a norm of utility as the ultimate social objective of
production, realized by a process of constructing. The
principle of construction, uniting the particular levels of
a work and marking them by function, is now found again
in the broader context of uniting the product and society
and bringing a functional aspect into their relationship.
The activistic idea of a work and of the process of crea-
tion, the dynamic image of the world, required a vision of
 - 12
i N. B. do punk tu 2: DEFORMAGJf\ nast~-
; przejscd ~
TWO.RZENIA
uJ -a::
.....
:::E
....,,
-
~ .....
=
••
N, B, de punktu 1: Malartswo
bez konstrukcji , nie jest sztuka;,
, a i!ustrac}Jl ..,_ __
Zasadnicz~ niczem nie rOini"cej
sii:: od fotografji ,,z natury".
the future. An inseparable part of the constructivist doc-
trine was thus a social utopia . The productive process and
the product were new myths, called forth to substitute the
devaluated language of pictures. The horizon of the future
was outlined by a conception of space.
Composition of space was the most far-reaching uto-
pian project of Strzeminski. Owing to it, owing to an ar-
chitectural arrangement of space, but in terms of a net-
work of rythms rather than of buildings "we shall be able
to set against the concept of art as a luxury, standing
above life and based upon a passive reception of im-
pressions , yielding to them and contemplating them, an art
that organizes life and its activities " 10 , wrote the artist.
In the fantastic vision of Strzeminski , space brought to-
gether the abstract and the concrete . Space, with a mathe-
matically defined depth, was at the same time the en-
vironment in which objects, people and societies had
their physical, biological and economic location. The geo-
metrical was connected with the ecological by a common
construction, based upon rhythms determining the laws of
the particular structures and arranging the space. Accord-
ing to Strzeminski, the task for an artist of the future will
be the " organization of the rhythms of life ", in opposition
to the postulates avowed by architects who talked about
the organization of "activities in buildings ". He believed that
there was involved an essential difference between static
approach to activities, and a dynamic concept of motion
between the several activities, being the rhythms pointing
to the relations between the activities. In this perspective,
the function of an artist could be reduced to defining
relations between activities , rather then designing them
Similarly , and remarkably, in the " Architectonic com-
pos itions " painted by that time , or in the sculptural
"Space compositions", it was not the shapes but the
arithmetical relations between their sizes and qualities
that were essential. While the futurist movement was
situated beyond society and space, the constructivist
movement could itself be defined as a rhythm, and as such
it determined spatial relations and was situated within its
society. Ultimately , its essence was not motion but rhythm .
An apprehension of the peculiar quality of the rhythms and
imposing their unity by artistic endeavours was expected
to provide the ground for the new, ideal organization of a
work of art , and at the same time for the spatial organiza-
tion of things, people and societies . In this manner, the
reification of a work of art was in part coextensive with the
- 13 -
puje przy konstruowaniu obrarn z dw~ch po·
wod6w:
a) formy ,.realn e " przedmiot u
musz& bye przystosow an e do
or ganicznej jednosci obrazu :
D b) przedmiot .. realny" zawsze
posiada w sobie formy po-
wstale z waru nk6w przypad -
kowych (walka o byt, uiy·
tecznosc). czyli- nie odpowied·
nich celom plastycznym .
spatial idealization of the level of " everyday life". The
vision of art became integrated with the vision of the future
order of the world . The place of art in life was defined by
the statement: "Art ought to become the formal organiza-
tion of the course of everyday phenomena of life" 11 ; the
permissible limits of intrusion of life into art were delineat-
ed by the declaration that "modern art, by setting forth
the problems of form, construction, precision, purposive-
ness , economy and organization, sublimates the feelings
most strictly connected with production " 12 . Strzeminski
declared : "In spite of our apparent break with utilitarian-
ism and our operating with pure form - with the fourth
dimension - in its applications our art becomes most
matter-of-fact and utilitarian. Modern art, as any living
art .. . is ahead of its time and it is untiring in the experi-
ments leading toward the monument of future culture.
Hence, its results which are frequently incomprehensible
and apparently nihilistic .. . We must go forward, try again
and again , beg in from the beginning. A picture becomes
old as soon as it has been made - for life does not come
to a stop even for a moment" 13 •
However , during the nineteen-thirties there was an in-
creasingly strong feeling of an unfulfilled utopia among
Polish constructivists. What were the reasons? Szczuka
offered an answer as early as 1927, when he wrote: "Only
the new socia l system will enable us to use all the oppor-
tunities of technological progress, suppressed or mi-
sused by those who govern the world today, and it will
make possible the arising of new conditions for th is hu-
man activity that we call art " 14 • " I know - added Strze-
minski sceptically - and I saw many examples that out-
side of Russia, where it (i.e ., communism - A. T.) is in the
air and in the social atmosphere (for it is a reality), in
all other countries its effect upon art is sterilizing ... ".
From the further context it becomes clear that what Strze-
minski meant was not communism in Poland, but the
socialist ideology of the Polish Socialist Party, quite in
vogue among the leftist intelligentsia. " The important
thing is not to propagate anything , but that the logic of the
position towards life be entailed by the logic of artistic
means " . The borderline between old and new art would
thus be extended into the domain of feelings, thoughts
and attitudes. According to Strzeminski, only the prole-
tarian revolution can bring about such effects . For example,
he wrote, "i n its early days, communism in Russia was a
purely consumptive affair for them, and their most impor-
33
 - 14 -
N, B, do punktu 3:
KONSTRUKCJ f\
- o ktOrej m owa -
CZ)'inie obral.u
SZTUKf\ NOWf\
I przez
- przez wsp61dzial
PRZEST~ZENI. Plf\SZCZYZN
•••
niezaleinie
•
CZYSTEJ FORMY
opiere si~ na objektywne .
wlaSciwoSci elem ent6w
ma 1ar stw?..
gdyi -
1111
tant problem was how to distribute a straw mattress and
two pairs of worn overshoes among five people . But as
constructivism has been developing, with its cult for modern
production (for machine production, but not for the ma-
chine itself, as in futurism). an impulse was born to in-
crease their production and hence their 5-year plan of
industrialization and the human being as a means and
objective of production , as against the programme of
true socialism. This entailed a negation of man as an
individual ... Until its soc ial and ideological consequen-
ces will be drawn from modern art - the logic of form
will be floating in a void and will not find its social exten-
sion. What I mean is not propaganda or a political posi-
tion and its "expression" with artistic means, but the logic
of a vital attitude towards the facts of an author's individual
life and towards the facts of life around us ... 15 " .
The initial Promethean optimism of constructivists which
spurred Soviet artists to realize Lenin's slogan " Commu-
nism is the rule of Soviets plus electrification " , and made
them believe that production in the new social conditions
would warrant the liberation of man, assuming a new form
both in Poland and east from it during the thirties.
In this country, the constructivist ideology took on rather
pessimistic overton~s. The change , however, was essen -
tially rooted elswhere than in the Soviet Union . Rather, it
was awareness resulting from flagrant comparisons . On
the one side , there was Szczuka's constructivist decoration
for a school ballroom; on the other, there was Leningrad
on the anniversary of the Revolution . The Industrial School
at Koluszki was the native counterpart of the Vkhutemas
or lnkhuk; the Collection of Modern Art in l6dz could be
matched with the almost forty Museums of Artistic Culture
in the Soviet Union . Finally, there was what had remained
of the faith in production after the big crush , and there
were the cosmopolitan slogans so readily accepted by
the Polish left wing in the context of its struggle with the
nationalist camp as compared with the lofty idea of inter-
national revolution and brotherhood . Polish constructi-
vists suffered from the acute feeling of their lingering in a
void . Their outlook was molded under the impact of three
attitudes that came to grips with each other : (1) positivism
and the "religion " of reason and action as the heritage of
Enlightment; (2) ideology of the bourgeois state and
social-democratic views st ill popular among the intelli-
gentsia ; (3) the awareness of the necess ity of a prole-
tarian revolution. Though remaining within their orbit,
34
- 15 -
rnalorsko · te kton,c,,, a
to zbudowanie na p!Jsz·
alnosc FORM. LINJI. BARW.
od tematu (w pojt:ciu zwyk(e m).
Konstrukcja anatomiczna
- o kt6rej Jubi~ mOwiC
pseudo -klaS)' CY - niem.:1
nic wsp6lnego ze sztuklt ,
gdyi. ma na celu Sciste
anatomiczne od tworzeni e
(glowy. cia la}, nie zaS stwo -
rzenie ob razu .
Polish artists rejected the forms of artistic activity attached
to the first and second of these attitudes. They unmasked
the positivist mythologies of art as a commodity and an
object of speculation and of an artist as a prophet; they
also unmasked socialist democracy and rejected its super-
ficial ideas. As they identified themselves with the revo-
lution, they hoped to realize it in their artistic and prophe-
tic visions. But at this point their hopes and endeavours
faced barriers they could not pass. The means of art
turned out to be insufficient. Constructivism was attacked,
from the same positions as Soviet constructivism.
Constructivism was an ideology of artists engaged in the
revolution, and the measure and mode of their engagement
ment was the constructivist artistic structure; but if it was
was the constructivist artistic structure ; but if this was
true , then the constructivist revolution had to be a perma-
nent one. It was a romantic revolut ion of poets. But it was
during the nineteen-twenties that Lenin's political strategy
dictated a massive attack against this attitude. Soviet con-
structivism was challenged almost at the moment of its
appearance , though it was only in the thirties when it was
ultimately smashed. By that time the productivist mytholo-
gy of Polish constructivism was attacked from the same
position. In 1933 M. Kotlicki criticised the "a. r." programme
in a leftist periodical: " Adherents of class art are 'full
radicals' and they create the framework of 'proletarian
literature ' ; the others ground their traditional position
upon assumptions postulated by the superiority of the con-
cept of art. The a. r. people admit their non class-directed
approach... Their fallacy results from their bourgeois
conception of a revolutionary writer . . . The a. r. people,
by renouncing the 'half-cultural' masses for the sake of
the objective respect for art, landea unconsciously on
the right-hand side of the barricade ... " 16 •
This was a total criticism and a tot~I shift of position. The
constructivist principle of structure ·and construction was
opposed by the principle of contents and realism. One of
the first ideological leaders of the new look in Poland
was H. Streng (M. Wfodarski) . He wrote : "The task of the
new realism is to express truly an arising new world, for
a powerful new trophy is already inherent in it: the new
content. Therefore the new realism resorts to the forces
which come from the social lowlands to the organized
masses of workers and peasants, for it is this class and
its assumptions which is the avantgarde of the new cul-
ture .. ." 17 •
12 p.14 and 15 from cat. Wilno, 1923, Text and typography
by Witold Kajruksztis
13 Witold Kajruksztis, Composition , painting , before 1925
The artistic structure was changed; new social facts, new
myths and new ways of struggle emerged.
The constructivist structure ceased to work, when a new
social situation and strategy emerged.
Andrzej Turowski
Z. Pronaszko , Katalog I Wystawy Ekspresjonist6w Pols-
kich. Krakow 1917, no page numbers.
2 (Unsigned) Co to jest konstruktywizm. " Blok" 1924, No
6/ 7, n. p. n.
3 T. Peiper, Miasto. Masa. Maszyna . In : T~dy. Warszawa
1930. Quoted from the new edition: T~dy. Nowe Usta,
Warszawa 1972, p. 39.
4 Discussion between L. Chwistek and W. Strzeminski.
"Forma " 1935, No 3, p. 4.
5 L. Chwistek, Tytus Czyzewski a kryzys formizmu. Quoted
from : Wielosc rzeczywistosci w sztuce i inne pisma este-
tyczne, Warszawa 1960, p. 108.
6 H. Stai:ewski , Nowa sztuka a spuscizna sztuki epok
minionych , " Pion " 1933, Nr 5, p. 5.
7 Such terms as " means ", " elements ", " construction",
"system", "building" are used in theoretical statements
by constructivist artists in a manner which is not very
exact, sometimes interchangeably. Thus, an attempt to
impose strict meaning upon them can be objectionable.
However , it seems useful to clear them up in a rather ge-
neral way and to use them in accordance with stipulations
for describing the peculiarities of the constructivist ar-
tistic movement.
8 Cf. the analysis of the poetic avantgarde by J. Stawinski,
Koncepcja j~zyka poetyckiego awangardy krakowskiej,
Wroctaw 1965, passim .
9 (Anonymous) inc. " Blok reprezentuje ludzi . .. " "Blok"
1924, No 2, n. p. n.
10 W. Strzeminski, Sztuka nowoczesna w Polsce. In: J.
Brz~kowski, L. Chwistek , P. Smolik, W. Strzeminski, 0 sztuce
nowoczesnej. t.6di: 1934, p. 91.
11 Ibidem , p. 92.
12 (W. Strzeminski) inc. "Masowy skok ku kulturze ... "
" a. r." 2 (a communication) , t.6di: 1931, p. 1.
13 S. GI., W. Strzeminski laureat nagrody malarskiej mi- •
asta l:..odzi wyjasnia swoje credo artystyczne. "llustro-
wana Republika" 1932, No 147, p. 7.
14 M. Szczuka, Sztuka a rzeczywistosc. " Di:wignia " 1927,
No 4, p.18.
15 W. Strzeminski , A letter to J . Przybos, 11th December
1931. MS, Institute of Art , Polish Academy of Sciences.
Warsaw.
16 M. Kotlicki, Mi~dzy wierszami 'aerowc6w' . "Zagary"
1933, No 2, n. p. n.
17 H. Streng , Walczymy o nowij sztuk~ . " Sygnaty " 1936,
No 17, p. 6.
35
 =·.•Iii.. ,.
-·
=
=•-
idT
Groups of the Constructivist Avantgarde
BLOK (1924-1926)
BLOK was the first group of Polish constructivists; it was
within this group that the theoretical grounds were first
formulated , plastic works were real ized and essential dis-
cussions on new art were carried out.
At the end of 1921 there was an exhibit ion in Warsaw,
bewildering the public. Three artists, young graduates of
the Warsaw Fine Arts School, showed their works: Szczu-
ka, Stazewski and Miller. The exhibited works by Szczuka
were mainly "mechanisms " of various kinds , movable pat-
terns of simple forms made of iron, stone, glass and wire .
Stazewski presented still lives, deformed along cubist
lines and Miller displayed a set of posters, with typography
based on the grouping of letters and words into geometri-
cal blocks emphasizing the meaning of the texts . In 1921
there was yet no mention of constructivism, but the exhi-
bition was quite different from what the formists, the most
advanced innovators of the preceding decade , used to
exhibit.
The concept of construction became the catchward only
in 1923, when an "Exhibition of New Art " was arranged in
Vilna ; its catalogue brought statements def ining the di-
rection of the new pursuits, and the peculiar arrangement
of the exhibition itself served to stress its claims to inno-
vation. At the beginning there was an original "collection
of rude gaudy postcards with blue-pink skies " , with a cap-
tion : " for those who look for beautiful landscapes in art" .
This collection was balanced by a display , in the same
room, of avantgarde periodicals and foreign books on mo-
dern art. Only after that, there was an exhibition of works
by seven young artists (Krynski, Kajruksztis, Puciatycka ,
Stazewski, Strzeminski, Szczuka, Zarnower); among them,
Kajruksztis and Streminski who initiated the event, show-
ed the greatest numbers of paintings. There were not only
abstract works; most of them were rigorously geometrical
compositions , similar in their manners of deformation to
cubist and even more to purist works. The exhibition
was not homogenous in its character . Its essence was a
search for principles of a new art emerg ing out of a
variety of modern trends. Strzeminski wrote : "The general
directive of the exhibition is the creation of a new perfec-
tion , a new classicism, by seizing the formal achieve -
ments attained by all the really plastic directions (Ce-
1
•
111111111
~= 111
zanne, cubism, futurism, suprematism, purism) (... ). Only
on the ground of all the formal inventions of contemporary
art is it possible to derive and create modern art". Artists
who had exposed in Vilna were already aware of its future
image. The postulates of Szczuka's programme, published
in fragments in the catalogue of the exhibition and com-
plete in "Zwrotnica " , emphasized the inseparability of art
and social issues and thereby pointed to a broad basis for
the new constructivist approach.
The idea of organizing a new artistic group seems to have
crystallized on the break of 1923 and 1924. Blok was its
result. Strzeminski, Kobro and Kajruksztis owed their con-
sciousness of the new problems to their Soviet experien-
ces; Berlewi had spent some time in Germany; Szczuka
and Zarnower had their contacts with the Berlin Der Sturm
Gallery; Warsaw artists: Stazewski, Szczuka, Rafatowski,
Niez-Borowiak, Zalewski discussed their own views; all
this brought those artists into the center of international
discussion.
The arising of the group was marked by the publication
of the first issue of the Blok magazine dated March 8, 1924.
A week later an exhibition of artists grouped around the
magazine was opened. The place of the exhibition was
remarkable for the new approach: it was the automobile
salon of the Laurin-Clement company in Warsaw, 11, Ma-
zowiecka Street. The majority of participants had exhibited
in Vilna, but there were also new ones: Berlewi, Kobro,
Krynski, Kajruksztis, Stazewski, Strzeminski, Szczuka,
Szulc, Zarnower; these people constituted the group from
the beginning; later on only Golus, Niez-Borowiak and Ra-
fatowski would join them. The catalogue of the exhibition
has not been extant; perhaps the first issue of "Blok" per-
formed its role. From a survey of works reproduced in the
magazine, as well as from a laconic press note about the
exhibition, grouping "cubists , constructivists and supre-
matists", we can guess that, similarly as in Vilna, quite
varied pictures were displayed. Their common mark was
the geometrical schematization of both representational
and abstract works. -
In 1924, during the first year of its existence, the group was
fully consolidated, but during this year the contradictions
that would eventually lead to a split of the group in the next
year began to come out. The starting point for common
action was an acceptance of the interpretation of the
plastic trends represented by the group's members offered
by Strzeminski and complemented by Szczuka . According
 to Strzeminski, " Cubism analyses the structure of a pic-
ture, transforms the three-dimensionality of the visible
world into the two-dimensionality of a picture by means
of interpenetrating planes offering unity to the pheno-
menon of the picture, localized within its frame. Supre-
matism ultimately breaks with the deformation of nature.
Flatness. Abstraction and geometry of forms implied
by the geometrical shape of the canvas stretcher. The final
solution to the statical flatness of a picture is given by
constructivism (if it undertakes the tasks relevant to paint-
ing)" . Let us add, according with a statement by Szczuka
published in the same issue, that constructivism, if it does
not "undertake the tasks relevant to painting" , aims to
create a new utilitarian art - an architectural form, a typo-
graphical pattern, a poster , an advertisement, a film.
The second presentation of Blok artists took place at the
end of the year (December-January 1924/ 25) in the "Po-
lonia" Hotel, in a collective exhibition of the members of
the Polish Artistic Club. The catalogue of that exhibition
was not published and we don't know its participants, nor
the exhibited works . In reviews were mentioned the names
of Niez-Borowiak, Stai:ewski, Szczuka and Zarnower; the
participation of Rafatowski and Krynski has failed to be
ascertained. Strzeminski and Kobro did not take part in
the event, thereby manifesting their already unfriendly
attitude to Szczuka; Berlewi, who had left the group after
a scandal during the first exhibition, was also absent. Ste-
fania Zahorska, a critic favourable to the group, wrote at
the end of her review about the then "artistic left":
" ... it presents the least numerous, but the most integrated
and least differentiated orientation. In spite of the large
differences between cubism as opposed to constructivism
and suprematism, there is a common denominator for all
these directions in devoting attention only problems of
form and its unlimited, abstract handling which makes the
"artistic left" uniform in its programme . .. " .
The common programme of the Blok artists formulated in
1924found its expression in a remarkable note on page one
of the second number of the magazine: " Blok represents
people united into a battle group by the slogan of absolute
construction. However, within the group there are different
directions, represented by the particular contributors of
the magazine". The concept of construction was the main
directive for all the artists belonging to the group , but still
the concept itself was by no means clear. Taken from the
terminology of architecture , and more broadly from a
technical vocabulary , it meant here mainly the require-
ments of plastic rigour, of the strict interdependence of
forms; unambiguous utterances; translatability into the
language of arithmetics or mechanics . "A work of art must
be as logical as a machine ", "Instead of inspiration and
ultimate contemplation - a conscious moulding will , re-
quiring clarity and precision of forms " . "The more perfect
a product of technique, the less room there is in it for
art and artist". "An introduction of art into life as a factor
contributing to the general development, and in its turn
dependent on the changes in the other fields of human
creative effort " - such and similar slogans could be read
in Blok. Stress was laid on the merits of the economy of
form and on the employment of new "industrial" materials.
Farreaching changes were expected in aesthetics : beauty
was eliminated as a positive aesthetic category and repla-
ced by the notion of an organic or logical relation of shapes,
and ultimately by the concept of utility of a work of art as
a product designed for social consumption. An individual
experience of an artist was denied as the motive for a work
of art; contemplation of an artistic object was eliminat-
ed as a mode of inspiration . Indeed, art was identified
with a product, similarly as the artistic process was iden-
tified with production. An artist was treated as an engineer;
a museum and a workshop identif ied with a mill. In this
sense a work-product was to be directly included into its
social context , and in consequence it was expected to
shape reality , rather than to embellish it. The tasks of new
art formulated in such terms were effects of the optimistic
faith in modern technology and production . They also im-
posed a programme of action to be realized in continuous
creative endeavours. A new era of unity of art, labour and
social life was proclaimed.
On the ground of those common beliefs the Blok artists
could undertake common endeavours and actions during
1924. Let us mention some of them. In opposition to the
programme of " national" art predominating in Poland, in
1924 Blok prepared a display for the Exposition. Internatio-
nale de l'Art Decoratif in Paris; however, it failed to be pro-
duced in France. Realizing a programme of social edu-
cation through art , Blok initiated a museum of reproduc-
tions in one of the historical houses in the Warsaw Old
City, in Kamienica Baryczk6w. Members of Blok, invited by
foreign avantgarde groups , took part in international ex-
hibitions in Brussels and Bucharest (1924) and in Riga and
Tallin (1925).
37

What were the contradictions that led to the split of the
group? The extreme conceptions which focused, within
the same supreme directive, the researches in two opposed
directions, were expressed in two programme papers pub-
lished in Blok, No 6/7 and 8/9. One of them, unsigned but
written by Szczuka was entitled "What is Constructi-
vism" (No 6/7, September 1924). It was an exposition
of the theory of utilitarianism; the other, entitled "B = 2"
was written by Strzemiriski and it was the first formula-
tion of the unistic theory (No 8/9, November-Dezem-
ber 1924).
Szczuka laid stress on the necessity to incorporate art into
the social life and he defined the principle of the new
utilitarian aesthetics which ought to be embodied in all
the forms of human activity and to permit for a new union
of the social and the artistic in a way that had been un-
known to the bourgeois aesthetics of beauty. Artists would
have to limit their endeavours to industrial design, typo-
graphy for books and posters, elaborating of interiors and
of utensils for them - and in the ultimate consequence
they would have to strive to produce complex integrated
architectonic forms. Such projects would be based on very
largely conceived social needs, not individual but treated
collectively, as "the historical needs of the given class or
stratum" of society. In Szczuka's programme, an easel
painting lost its legitimacy and independence. It could, at
most, become a constituent element of an integrally con-
ceived architectonic interior.
Strzemiriski pursued the same aim: a union of art and so-
ciety; but he saw the way towards it in historical studies on
painting; the principle of organic structure elaborated in
those studies could be realized only in future as an or-
ganic arrangement of the whole of social life. According
with Strzemiriski's formulation, the aim of an artist is to
create " the organicism of a plastic work". The starting
point towards it should be a precise awareness of its
condition of existence pointing out to the essential cha-
racteristics of its construction. If the existence of all things
as objects is the same, reasoned Strzemiriski, it means
that the limits of a work of art are its formal characteristics:
in a picture, these are its plane and its frame. Thus, orga-
nicism will result from a union of the introduced shapes
with their formal determinants. The illusion of motion
attained by making the plane dynamic , typical for old paint-
ings, violated the essence of the plane. Suggesting the
changes of place in space, art used to built up an illusion of
38
16 Mieczysfaw Szczuka, Warsaw, c.1926
17 Mieczysfaw Szczuka, Design for an interior, 1924
depth; but since motion occurs in time, it extends beyond
the limits of the stretcher and it destroys the closed unity.
Art that has prevailed until now, produced action and
narration. These were its greatest fallacies. New art, ac-
cording to Strzemiriski, ought to break this dualistic model
and attain the "mutual neutrality of forms", thereby consti-
tuting the "constructive organicism" in a picture.
The divergence of problems raised by Szczuka and by
Strzemiriski was extensive. However, they did not exclude
each other, for there was no difference in the basic appro-
ach, but rather there was a discrepancy in the systems of
methods by which the common tasks were expected to be
realized . In the last resort, Szczuka's utilitarianism was
based on artistic construction, while on the other hand,
the unistic construction was a starting point for utilitarian
art. However, this was enough for mutual bitterness and
charges; it was more and more difficult to see, what the
two opponents shared with each other. The other members
of Blok divided into two camps, and within each of them
the positions were further diversified. Teresa :Zarnower
remained on Szczuka's side, while Stazewski with his own
system of contrasts and Niez-Borowiak, most close in her
attitude to the latter, were adherents of Strzemiriski and
Kobro. Kryriski who tended towards decorative art, and
Kajruksztis, who had been staying in Vilna, maintained
more and more loose contacts with the group. Increasingly
remote from it became also Golus and Szulc, who were
satisfied with making stage designs only, as well as St.
Zalewski who had never completely rejected the problems
typical for the formist movement.
In 1925 the unity of the group came to an end. The only
issue of the magazine, published in April of that year, was
wholly devoted to architecture and theatre. A partial
change of the direction of the "Blok" magazine was re-
ferred by Szczuka to a return to the initial conception, but
in fact it was caused by the scanty group of contributors.
The new orientation actually tended to reject the technical
and theoretical problems of easel painting and of the
"pure" plastic work. It covered by -its wide scope the prob-
lems of industrial design, advertising, stage design and,
finally, architecture. Szczuka and :Zarnower, more and more
isolated, focused their attention on the latter two fields.
The culmination of their activity was the International Ex-
hibition of Architecture opened on February 27, 1926 in
Zach~ta and organized together with some architects. The
last issue of "Blok", No 11, dated March 1, 1926, was fully
devoted to this exhibition. None of the earl ier members
among the painters remained in the group.
This was a remarkable end: an embodiment of the postu-
late, hesitantly put forth at the beginning of the road , of
architecture as a synthesis of all human activity , uniting in
itself artistic merits with direct social utility . The task of
relating art to life was solved on the basis of a con-
ception of new architecture . In the next phase of rese-
arches, when the Blok group no longer existed , Szczuka's
utilitarianism would be continued by professional archi-
tects-functionalists , while on the other hand the unistic
considerat ions of Strzeminski would lead to the formula-
tion of a utopian idea of architectonical space .
Andrzej Turowski
Praesens (1926-1939)
Avantgarde considerations on architecture by painters of
the Blok group could not satisfy professional architects
who wanted to discuss concrete and special problems
rather than vague slogans. Discussions on the new issues
of architecture, in particular those stimulated by the pro-
jects demonstrated in the International Exhibition of Ar-
chitecture in 1926, established close links among a group
of young professionals who wanted to make their voice in-
ternationally heard. Syrkus wrote: "By way of experiment,
architectonization provides new opportunities, not only
plastic as it might seem, but also social. For architecture
changes the social pattern , as the social pattern changes
architecture" .
The idea to organize a new artistic group consolidating
artists of all branches, but onley those which had not been
remote from architecture, perhaps occured for the first
time in the middle of 1926. The initiator of the association
was Szymon Syrkus, by that time vividly active in Polish and
international architectonic efforts. In June 1926 the first
issue of the magazine " Praesens " was published . It was
the theoretical organ of a new group of "modernists" that
assumed the same name. The list of members was pub -
lished on the first page . There were architects: Elkouken ,
Lachert , Malinowski, Syrkus and Szanajca , as well as paint-
ers and sculptors, among them some former Blok mem-
bers : Stazewsk i, Zalewski.
The programme statement by Syrkus defined the charac-
te r and the tasks of the new functionalist architecture ;
Stazewski who spoke on behalf of painters, emphasized
the strict connections between the new geometrical paint-
ing, interior design and an architectonic project as an
integral whole.
Following the publication of the magazine, in September
1926, the first exhibition of the members of the group took
place in Zach~ta , one of the most important Warsaw sa-
lons . The exhibition was divided into six sections: beside
painting, sculpture and architecture, there were interior
designs , stage designs and book graphics . During the ex-
hibition new members joined the group; such as the paint-
ers Podsadecki , Witkowski and Strzeminski , the stage de-
signers Pronaszko, and some architects, among them Bru-
kalski. The catalogue of the exhibit ion was probably elab-
orated by Syrkus; slogans about the spatial character of
the new architecture , repeated many times later , could be
39
 read in it: "Modern technology provides an architect with
an opportunity to set in motion, and even partly to elimi-
nate completely, some of the elements which make up
mass and body, or the opportunity to open them up to-
wards space ... ".
The most intensive activity of the Praesens group could
be observed between 1926 and 1929: from the first exhibi-
tion to the moment of the design and realisation of the pa-
vilions and interiors in the Universal National Exhibition
in Poznan. This initial period of strict collaboration of
painters and architects was based mainly on a common
theoretical background and interest; it ended with a break
which emerged during the first more ser ious common
realization of a complex task.
Praesens artists exposed their works on the first and sec-
ond Salon of the Association of Polish Architects (June
1927; May 1928); they participated in the Modernist Salon
in March 1928. A separate room was devoted to Praesens in
the Autumn Salon in Paris in 1929, than again on the rep-
resentative Polish exhibition in Brussels, Hague and
Amsterdam (December 1928-March 1929) and finally in
the Universal National Exhibitions in Poznan in May 1929
which summed up this period. Members of the group pub -
lished numerous theoretical statements in many periodi-
cals appearing by then in Poland . A paper written by Syr-
kus and Strzeminski for "Przeglqd Artystyczny" was one of
the most significant among them.
It was also during that period that the edition of the " Prae-
sens Library " devoted to modern art was initiated. The
small book by Strzeminski entitled " Unizm" was published
in this series.
Authors of programme formulations of Praesens empha-
sized the union of new architecture with social demands.
New building, making use of all the technical opportunities
offered by modern industry and fulfilling the needs of in-
habitants, ought to integrate the houses with their whole
surrounding environment. The process of integration
should also be carried out on the "interior" level on which
all the forms of artistic creation should be subjected to the
supreme social role of architecture, according with the
statement by Syrkus that architecture is a function of three
factors: economic and social, technological and construc-
tive, and plastic. The building of cheap, small and generally
accessible appartements was postulated, and the use of
standard prefabricated units, new techniques and techno-
logies of construction was advised . Similarly, the space
40
was handled, after le Corbusier, in a very concrete manner,
as the relationship with so-called "small" architecture and
green areas. The tasks of new architecture conceived in
such terms were sufficiently extensive to include the con-
ceptions of some painters (Stai:ewski, Pronaszko) who
saw the only way of solving their plastic problems in formal
subjection and integration of their compositions with a
given building and architectonic space. This was reflected
in some remarks in the National Exhibition catalogue. "The
activity of the Praesens association is above all embodied
in the new collaboration of architects and painters. Each
of them approaches the solving of his problems from the
standpoint of the common creative tasks: architectonic
problems for architects; painterly ones for painters , sculp-
tural for sculptors; their result, the work, is an inclusive
whole. Those general concepts apprehended by indivi-
duals active in various fields of art , and realized by means
proper for each of the plastic arts, have produced a com-
mon artistic ground, permitting well conceived work and
fullness of achievement. .. ".
But at the same time some separatist tendencies of non-
architects could be felt in this text, perhaps most fully ex-
pressed by Strzeminski, which eventually led, in the middle
of 1929, to a split in the group.
Strzeminski did not agree with the idea of individualized
function reduced to concrete demands of a given family
inhabiting a house, or to the technological opportinities of
building. Strzeminski 's version of functionalism was mar-
ked by a total approach. By function he meant a general
social perspective, not derived from concrete human needs
or from technological potentialities; in fact, it failed to
be a practical postulate that could be brought to effect.
He derived function from an analysis of a work and con-
ceived it as an artistic relationship; its role , according to
him , was to guide people. Strzeminski's functional archi-
tecture was never a problem of a single building, but a
universal issue of architectonization of the space. No won-
der then that during construction work at the National
Exhibition in Poznan an open conflict arose between
Syrkus and Strzeminski. Praesens members obtained
assignments to elaborate the building of the ·centro -
Cement pavilion and the interiors of the Spirits Monopoly
and the Finance Ministry pavilions. In June 1929 Strze-
minski , Stai:ewski and Kobro left the group.
The second period of the activity of Praesens was marked
by a greater concentration of arch itects on technical prob-
18 Mieczysfaw Szczuka , Architectural design, 1924
19 Mieczysfaw Szczuka, Kemal Pasha, photomontage,
1924
lems of building; painters played no significant role by
then. Their involvement was witnessed only by a fair num-
ber of reproductions published in the second issue of the
magazine. This second and last issue of "Praesens", pub-
lished in May 1930, brought an article by Syrkus which
presented a " technical-minded " development of the theses
avowed in No 1. Theoretical and designing activity of the
group members was very broad indeed, and by no means
limited to contributions to their own magazine; they pub-
lished their statements in such periodicals as "Archi-
tektura i budownictwo" and " Dom . Osiedle. Mieszkanie".
Syrkus took active part in the work of the international or-
ganizations of architects CITAM and CIRPAC. In Poland,
Praesens members took part in many competitions and
exhibitions; they were active in disseminating informa-
tion on new forms in architecture (e.g ., in 1933 they orga-
nized a big presentation of films on architecture, featuring,
among others, works of Hans Richter and Le Corbusier) ;
they organized discussions and popular lectures on new
art.
After 1930 they were no longer closely associated, but they
always took the affirmative side in the struggles for mo-
dern art.
Architectonic projects of Praesens members united several
inspiring influences from both Eastern and Western avant-
garde centers. Certainly the impact of the thoughts and
works of Le Corbusier predominated, but there were also
influences, though less strongly felt, of the Bauhaus and of
Dutch architects from the De Stijl tradition. Praesens was
open towards the whole of avantgarde ideas by then cur-
rent in Europe.
Andrzej Turowski
KEMAL PASHA
KEMAL'S CONSTRUCTIVE PROGRAM
M.S•t:"'""•·
The "a. r." Group ("revolutionary artists")
1929-1936
Among Polish artistic associations with obviously avant-
garde programmes, the " a. r." group deserves particular
attention not only because of the predominant role played
in it by Wfadysfaw Strzeminski, but also because of its
largest endeavour which was the establishment of a per-
manent museum collection of modern art in t.6dz.
It was only around 1870 that t.6dz began its development,
exceptional in European scale, to a big city, second in
Poland as to the number of inhabitants. During that de-
cade the old handicraft textile industry, developing here
since early 19th century, was ultimately eliminated by mo-
dern factories.
The earliest beginnings of cultural life in the city, pre-
viously devoid of any traditions, could be observed in the
first decade of the 20th century, when intelligentsia began
to settle in t.6dz. A newspaper, a library, a theatre and a
high school were founded, but this could be hardly suffi-
cient for a town with over half a million inhabitants . Institu-
tional organization of cultural life gained impetus only
between 1927 and 1934, when leftist parties predominated
in the townhall.
One of the first attempts to break the cultural lethargy of
t.6dz was the founding by the city of an award for literary
achievements. The award was an all-national prize and
from the outset it became very significant. In 1932, on the
initiative of the Culture and Education Section of the City
Council it was extended to cover the fine arts and science.
Painters who were most recognized by the establishment
competed for the award. However, it was granted to Strze-
minski, an artist related with the most radical trend in
Polish art. It was a bold step indeed, to the highest credit
of the town authorities.
The next enterprise of the town councillor Smolik was the
founding, in 1930, of a City Museum, with mainly 19th
century Polish paintings from the collection offered to the
city by a Cracow writer and collector Kazimierz Barto-
szewicz. In the same year , on the intiative of the Education
and Culture Section of the City Council, the local exhibition
salon, the Town Gallery, was taken under supervision of
the Institute for Art Propaganda in Warsaw. It was an im-
portant event for the cultural policy of the city, for it brought
to an end the chaos and low level of exhibitions organized
by the private tenants of the Gallery.
41

In March 1930 the Radio Station of L6dz began the broad-
casting of its own programme, and a year later the first
literary magazine "Prqdy" began to appear. The list of
similar initiatives is closed (but by no means exhausted} by
the foundation of the Association of Plastic Artists, located
in the Museum.
Those and other events caused that l6dz not only made up
for the many years of neglect of the matters of culture,
but it could even become the centre of the Polish artistic
avantgarde .
The "a . r." group was organized in the middle of 1929, after
the split among the members of the group Praesens. Be-
cause of ideological disagreements, Wfadysfaw Strzemir'l-
ski, his wife Katarzyna Kobro and Henryk Stazewski left
Praesens. In 1930 those three were joined by two poets :
Julian Przybos and Jan Brz~kowski. The personal com-
position of the group and the union of two artistic discipli-
nes were a matter of Strzemir'lski 's conscious choice. He
justified it in a letter to Przybos from December 1, 1929:
" . .. I believe that we have a so strong current against us
and that it has so well settled itself in the strategic points
that only a unified front of poetry and plastic arts , offering
an accompaniment to each other can face it, smuggling
art to the adherents of poetry, and poetry to the lovers
of art" .
In this way the "a. r." group was founded. Its programme
was formulated in the form of short slogans in "Communi-
cation No. 1" published in 1930 as a two-sided leaflet, in a
very modern graphical elaboration. The programme avow-
ed a fight for modern art in Poland on a broader basis than
Blok and Praesens had acted . It declared the necessity to
introduce the modern style in all domains of art , and as its
indices were mentioned organicism of form, succinctness
and logic of form. The group was scattered. Mr and Mrs
Strzemir'lski had been staying at Koluszki, where they
taught drawing in the local high school and in the Industrial
School for Girls . Stazewski lived in Warsaw. Przybos was a
teacher of Polish language in a high school at Cieszyn and
Brz~kowski managed the Secretariat of the Association for
Cultural Exchange between Poland and France in Paris.
The address of the group for correspondence was by that
time Stazewski 's appartment in Warsaw . The fate of the
" a. r." group has become steadily linked with L6dz since
Strzeminskis came there in August 1931.
The " a. r." group could not afford the publication of its own
periodical , as Blok and Praesens had done . At the beginn-
42
20 Mieczysfaw Szczuka, typographical design for a vo-
lume of poems by Anatole Stern: "Europa"
ing, the 1monthly "Europa" seemed to offer much hope; it
was published in Warsaw under editorship of Stanisfaw
Baczyr'lski and Strzemir'lski managed its art section.
However, the plans connected with "Europa" soon failed,
since in the conditions by then prevailing, it was by no
means easy to publish such an uncompromised periodical
as Strzemir'lski desired.
The lack of the group's own organ was expected to be
made up for to some extent by the "communications".
Besides No 1, already mentioned, only one more was
published, "Communication No 2", in December 1932. It
was larger than the first; it had four pages containing a few
short articles on contemporary modern art, a paper on
contemporary poetry, a poem by Przybos "Drogq" and by
Brz~kowski "Migdafowy wiecz6r", as well as a design of
a new set of printing types by Strzemir'lski, with an explana-
tory text. The communication was illustrated with repro-
ductions of works by Strzemir'lski, Kobro and Stazewski.
We can suppose that the idea of publishing "communi-
cations" failed when the first issue of the periodical "Forma"
appeared in May 1933; it was an official organ of the Trade
Union of Plastic Artists in l6dz; inofficially, it was the
organ of the "a . r." group. The odds are high that the
initiative to establish this magazine came from Strzemir'lski.
The editor in chief was Karol Hiller, an eminent represen-
tant of the artistic l6dz, whose works and ample publicistic
activity contributed a lot to the development of avantgarde
art in Poland between the two wars.
"Forma" was the first and only periodical in Poland during
those years dealing with such a wide gamut of problems
related to the developments in modern art. Its editorial
board succeeded to obtain from Mondrian a paper on
"Realistic and Superrealistic Art" and from Malevich a
treatise on "Suprematism". The editors were sensitive to
actual events and quite dynamic in their methods of work.
One of the tasks that the " a. r." group set for itself was a
publishing of its own library. This programme has been
realized, overcoming enormous financial difficulties, until
1936. Seven volumes were published : collections of poems
by Przybos " Z ponad " and "W gfqb las", by Brz~kowski
"W drugiej osobie" and "Zacisni~te dookofa ust" and a
theoretical work "Poezja integralna", a book by Strzemir'l-
ski and Kobro "Kompozycja przestrzeni, obliczanie rytmu
czasoprzestrzennego", and a work by Strzemir'lski's pupils
from the School of Vocational Supplementary Education
No 10 in l6dz, "Druk funkcjonalny". Particularly remark-
 '

Mieczystaw Szczuka, Drawing for the film Zabites, c . 1925

21 Mieczysfaw Szczuka, " Karta zwolnienia " , (certificate
of discharge) , photomontage , 1926
able was the graphical elaboration of all the volumes for
which Strzeminski war responsible.
Doubtless the most valuable result of the activity of the
"a. r." was the organization of the Collection of Internatio-
nal Modern Art in l6dz , on the initiative of Strzeminski. He
suggested it for the first time to the members of Blok, and
than again to the Praesens group . However , the project
failed because of the lack of suitable space , money, and
above all people eager to collaborate. It was only in 1929
in l6dz that Strzeminski found an enthusiast for his cause
in the person of Przecfaw Smol ik, the president of the
Education and Culture Section of the Town Council in
l6dz. Smolik warranted a room in the newly established
City Museum and he offered to pay the money necessary
to cover the fre ight from abroad.
Pictures were collected by "a . r." members in this country
and by Brz~kowski abroad . As a secretary of the Associa-
tion for Cultural Exchange between Poland and France
and as one of the editors of " L'Art Contempora in - Sztuka
Wsp6fczesna " , Brz~kowski made very close contacts with
top representants of the European avantgarde in Paris and
he persuaded many of them to offer their works for the
l6d z collect ion t hat was in the making.
Another important fact for the success of the action were
fr equent travels of Stazewski to Paris and his participation
in the group " Cercle et Carre " founded by Michel Seuphor
and Torres-Garcia in 1930, and then in the group " Abstrac-
tion -Creation " initiated by Georges Vantongerloo and
Auguste Herbin in 1932. Strzeminski and Kobro were also
invited to join both groups.
The prestige of the " a. r." group among foreign artists on
one side and the favourable attitude of the city authorities
of l6d z on the other caused that during less than three
years , from the end of 1929 until the middle of 1932, a collec -
tion of modern art of international significance was found-
ed in l6dz. The collection was given over by the "a . r."
group to the City Museum as a deposit on February 15,
1931. The relevant contract with the Education and Culture
Section of the City Council of l6dz listed 21 works. The
Catalogue of the Collection issued in March 1932 contained
as many as 75 items. Dr. Marian Minich , director of the
Museum since 1935, issued about 1937 a supplement to the
Catalogue listing 48 new items . The Collect ion contained
works by Polish and foreign artists . Among the latter there
were mainly representants of the group " Cercle et Carre " :
Jean Arp , Willi Baumeister, Serge Charchoune , Jean Gorin ,
Vilmos Huszar, Fernand Leger, Michel Seuphor, Amadee
Ozenfant, Enrico Prampolini, Kurt Schwitters, Sophie Tau-
ber-Arp, Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Friedrich Vordemberge-
Gildewart, Georges Vantongerloo, Hendrik Nicolaas
Werkman, Frantisek Foltyn . There were also artists who
did not belong to "Cercle at Carre" : Alexander Calder,
Sonia Delaunay , Theo van Doesburg, Albert Gleizes, Jean
Helion , Auguste Herbin, Paul Joostens, Pablo Picasso,
Louis Marcoussis, Georges Valmier. We can thus risk a
statement that " Cercle et Carre", a rather short-lived
group, has had its small but steady exposition in the
Museum of l6dz for 40 years.
During the last war the International Collection of Modern
Art was destined to share the fate of the first collection of
this kind established in Hannover in 1926 and burnt in 1933,
after Hitler took power. The destruction of the l6dz collec-
tion was planned for 1945, after an intended exhibition
entitled "Entartete und judische Kunst " . The exhibition
failed to come to effect, but many works perished during
the war anyway, and we know them only from reproduc-
tions in the Catalogue. Among the lost works are paintings
by Torres-Garcia, Gleizes, Gorin, Herbin, Picasso and a
sculpture by Calder .
We have to discuss the exhibitions of the "a. r." group.
They were not many. The group was not very interested in
this kind of collective activity, though its individual mem-
bers exhibited a lot. They participated in spring and
autumn salons of the IPS (Institute for Art Propaganda) and
in exhib itions of the Trade Union of Plastic Artists in l6dz.
They also joined the events of "Artes" in Lw6w and of the
" Cracow Group " in Cracow.
The only exhibition to some extent signed by the group
was the exhibition of a "Group of Modern Plastic Artists"
in October and November 1933. It was shown in Warsaw
and l6dz. The catalogue brought an Introduction in two
parts . Part I was edited by the "Group of Modern Plastic
Artists" and Part II by the " a. r." . The former brings a short
history of avantgarde groups in Poland, beginning with
formism up to the group " a. r.". The text signed by " a. r."
explains the essential values and the necessity to develop
modern art in Poland. The exhibition was a big event.
Beside the "a. r." members, Niez-Borowiak, Stanisfaw and
Zygmunt Grabowski, Karol Hiller, Jerzy Krauze, Karol
Krynski, Maria lunkiewicz, Konstanty Mackiewicz, Aniela
Menkes, Stefan Wegner and others took part in it. The
"a. r." artists presented their best works. Stazewski showed
45
 AWANGARDY
CZA. SOPISMO ,.,...,.
CEN A I K
OLD
ARTYSTYCZNEJ
WARSZAWA
8 M A R CA 1924
R EDAKC J A l A DMI•
N I STkAC J A: ~
ul. WSP61.JlA20 m. 39

!~:";;\~~~>l,l
=~11.F~M REVUE INTERNATIONIU.E D'AVANGARDE

7 abstract paintings; Kobro 6 space compositions; Strze-

mir'lski 11 architectural and 9 unistic compositions. Besides,
abstract paintings were shown by Mackiewicz and Hiller.
It was the first show of abstract art in Poland on such
a scale.
More attention was devoted to exhibitions presenting mod-
ern forms of applied graphics. Strzemir'lski developed a
particular passion for th is field. Its crowning was the ex-
hibition organized together with the JPS in l6dz in 1932.
The catalogue of the exhibition, designed by Strzemir'lski
and signed by the "a . r." group, mentioned eminent names
and a fair number of their works . Jan Tschichold exhibited
24 works ; Walter Dexel 21; Kurt Schwitters 62; Cesar
Domela Nieuwenhuis 18. Among Polish artists we spot the
names of Szczuka, Podsadecki, Hiller, Stai:ewski, Kobro
and Strzemir'lski. Beside this international exhibition , Strze-
mir'lski organized two more shows of prints , local in char-
acter : one in November 1935 and another in 1936.
As we can see from the extant documents, the venture
which kept the group together for the longest time was the
publishing of the " 'a. r.' Library". For that reason we can
consider the publication of its last volume - a collection of
poems by Brz~kowski " Zacisni~te dookota ust", 1936 - as
the closing date of the " a. r." activities.
The " a. r." group played an important role in the develop-
ment of Polish art between the two World Wars . We can say
without any exaggeration that it was one of the most
interesting artistic groups by then active in Europe. Theo-
retical ideas and artistic achievements of Strzemir'lski,
Kobro and Stai:ewski have been a genuine and original
contribution to the endeavours of the world avantgarde of
those years.
Anna lab~cka

46
 22 Cover of the magazine BLOK, 1924, No 1
23 Cover of BLOK , 1924, No 6-7
24 Wtadystaw Strzeminski , typographical design for
BLOK , No 2, p. 7
Periodicals
of the Constructivist Movement
Zwrotnica
The founder of " Zwrotnica" (the title means " railway
switch " ) was Tadeusz Peiper. When he came back to
Poland in 1921, he found the peculiar atmosphere of for-
mism in its agony and in the chaos of a multitude of
futurist slogans. Six issues of the magazine , constituting its
first series , were published in Cracow between May 1922
and October 1923 ; the second series (also six issues) was
published between May 1926 and December 1927. To the
first series contributed ex-formists : Leon Chwistek, Tytus
Czyzewski, Stanistaw lgnacy Witkiewicz , as well as futurist
poets: Bruno Jasienski , Anatol Stern, Aleksander Wat,
Stanistaw Mtodoi:eniec and representants of the new
constructivist trend: Mieczystaw Szczuka and Wtadyslaw
Strzeminski.
Two consecutive papers by Tadeusz Peiper : " Miasto.
Masa . Maszyna" and "Metafora terazniejszosci" were
attempts to formulate the new and original artistic prob-
lems. According to Peiper, the urban , social and techno-
logical elements form together the fundament for the
shaping of a new imagination and they prov ide the only
standards for modern art. The metaphor, not limited to
literature only, alows "to transform the reality of impres-
sions and to process it into our purely poetical reality" .
Along such lines the idea of a separate poetical language
was born, being the most important achievement of the
continuators of Peiper 's programme among the poets of
the so-called "Cracow avantgarde ". In the last issue of the
first series Peiper discussed and appraised futurism .
The graphic arrangement of the first series of " Zwrotnica "
announced the style of constructivist typography. The
cover for the last issue was designed by Strzeminski. The
second series, after 1926, was elaborated graphically by
Kazimierz Podsadecki.
The second series of " Zwrotnica " was different from the
first. General postulates concerning art were replaced by
discussions on concrete poetical achievements. It was a
period of close collaboration of Peiper with poets of the
Cracow avantgarde: Jan Brz~kowski , Jalu Kurek and
Julian Przybos. Peiper wrote: "We love everything that has
to do with words: its life, its varieties and minute shades:
WLADYSLAW STRZEMINSKI
pp
D
..
rt
M
• -r:
2 I
• C
~K I'
.
I - •
..1-
0 E:
:.1-1
its relations and its relations of relations. And we particu-
larly love its unknown potentialities, what we can do w ith
them ourselves : we love the work on it .. ." .
Problems of the plastic arts were given less consideration
in this series . " Zwrotnica " was continued by a literary
avantgarde periodical "Linia " published in Cracow be-
tween 1931 and 1933 (five issues) and edited by Jalu Kurek
and by a bilingual French and Polish magazine co-edited
by Brz~kowski in Paris between 1929 and 1930 (three
issues) which devoted more attention to art subjects:
"L'Art Contemporain - Sztuka Wsp61ecesna".
Blok
" Blok " was the first constructivist periodical in Poland; it
was the theoretical organ of artists, members of the Blok
group, in which the views of the European avantgarde
were made known to the public ; it was also a field for typo-
graphical experiments . According to Szczuka , the initiative
to establish the magazine came from Teresa Zarnower .
It was financed by private money of the group members.
Numbers 1 to 9 were published during 1924 ; number 10
was dated April 1925, and the last numbe r 11, devoted to
the International Exh ibition of Modern Architecture , was
published in March 1926. The editor's office was in Szczu-
ka's appartment in Warsaw. The editorial committee for the
first four issues was formed by Szczuka, Stai:ewski, Zarn-
ower and a poet Edmund Miller ; beginning f rom No 5
(July 1924) only Szczuka and Zarnower edited the maga-
zine. It had no constant size, front page pattern or title
setting ; every issue was set differently. In No 2 we read :
"Our magazine will offer, by means that are at our dis-
posal, new types of graphic arrangements . In this way we
shall point out new directions in printing". Texts were
printed with diversified types; the paragraphs and columns
were drawn into geometrical figures ; headlines or frag-
ments of articles were divided by spacing or by simple
inserts. Typography served the realization of the construc-
tivist postulate of maximum economy and clarity of a text.
Decorativeness was eliminated in the pursuit after lucid
and integral meaning, brought into relief by the graphic
patterns.
Among the numerous reproductions of works by artists
connected with the Blok group , photographs of machines
and vehicles were given . " Machines are levers of progress
and tools ploughing the psyche of modern man"; or it was
47
 NN
HPT
HPHPHPHPHPHPff)I ff}I ff}I
Tt11•1,.•fj•
proposed: " Look at the car of the Laur in-Clement brand
and judge by yourself , if an artist could give it a more
perfect form without impediment for construction" . Accord -
ing with t he postulates of util itar ianism , artists were sum-
moned to join the industrial production ; it was pointed out
that a model of organicism for works of art ought to be the
logic of the coordinated parts of a machine . The link
between the pursuits of Polish artists and the endeavours
of international avantgarde was stressed. Works by Male-
vich , van Doesburg, Schwitters, Baumeister, Moho ly-Nagy
and others were reproduced and short statements from lon-
ger papers were published by Mies van der Rohe, Malevich,
van Doesburg , Lissitsky , Schwitters . Contacts were main-
tained with several avantgarde periodicals abroad , among
them " Gestaltung", " Mecano", "Contimporanul ", " Merz",
" Ma", " De Stijl " , " Der Sturm " . There was information
about the developments in modern art in Hungary, Ger-
many, Roumania , Latvia, Czechoslowakia.
According with a programme postulating an integration of
loose statements on art into a broadly conceived theo-
ret ical body, the "Blok" magazine published poems by
Ye.senin and Bouduin , papers on music by Igor Stravinsky,
articles on Dutch architecture, on contemporary theatre,
on French literature , on discoveries in spatial photography .
However , " Blok " was above all the place where Polish
achievements were presented. Every issue contained
numerous reproductions of works by members of the
group. Their programme statements , in form of short series
of postulates or longer articles were published. Some of
these texts remained unsigned; they were written by
Szczuka and Strzeminski. The idea of an " aesthetic theory
of maximal economy" was set forth , substituting the con-
cepts of advantage or organic ism for beauty . The functions
of a contemporary picture we re considered , either within
the framework of an integrated architectonic space, or as
solving its own inherent problems of artistic structure .
After Mies van der Rohe it was avowed: "There are no
problems of form, but only problems in construction " ;
typography , photomontage , interior designs and architec-
ture were proposed.
These tendencies found their fullest formulation in two
papers published in the last issues of the magazine in 1924:
"What is Constructivism" by Szczuka and "B = 2" by
Strzeminski. These papers defined the different program-
mes of the two artists: utilitarianism by Szczuka and unism
by Strzeminski. The controversies that ensued from these
48
HPT
formulations led eventually to an open conflict in the
group.
In 1925 Strzeminski no longer calloborated with Blok and
the trend of the magazine ultimately changed. The problems
of useful art and of new architecture became predominant.
But the new issues required a new tribune for specialist
discussion among professional architects.
Praesens
The first number of the magazine "Praesens", with the sub-
title "a quarterly of the modernists" saw light in June 1926.
It was intended as an organ of an artistic group with the
same name, associating architects and painters. The initia-
tor of the group and of the magazine was the would-be
editor of the section of architecture of the magazine, Szy-
mon Syrkus. Beside him, to the editorial board belonged
Stai:ewski , who managed the section of painting and
Helena Niemirowska (later on Mrs Syrkus) as a secretary.
The first issue of "Praesens", quite voluminous with its 64
pages, was opened by two programme articles: "Prelimi-
narz architektury" ("Estimates of Architecture") by Syrkus
and a short statement on painting by Stai:ewski , " Styl
wsp6tczesnosci " (" The Contemporary Style"). Both de-
fined the direction of pursuits of artists connected with the
magazine; both propagated functionalist ideas and archi-
tectural synthesis of all forms of artistic expression. The
functionalist programme of architecture, propagated in
" Praesens", demanded the use of new building technol-
ogies to fulfill the needs of the inhabitants, and it set forth
for the architects, painters and sculptors the task of elab-
orating a uniform plastic system. The social significance
of architecture so conceived was the subject of a paper by
J. J. F. Oud in "Praesens" No 1, beside extensive remarks
by van Doesburg and Malevich. The proposals suggested
by functionalism were confronted with the broad context of
avantgarde international endeavours . The beliefs expres-
sed in the printed texts were exemplified by numerous
reproductions of architectonic designs and of paintings by
Polish members of the group and by foreign artists: La-
chert , Szanajca, Malinowski, Syrkus, Stai:ewski, Kobro,
Rafatowski, Borowiak and Malevich, van Doesburg , Oud.
The issue was closed by a text for discussion by Stefania
Zahorska on "Criticism towards Modernism" and an in-
fomation by Stanistaw Baczynski on "Surrealism".
The second and last issue of "Praesens" was published in
25 Mieczystaw Szczuka, "Typografja", BLOK, No 3-4,
p.7
26 Henryk Stazewski, Paris, 1930
May 1930, i.e. after the split of the group which occured in
1929. In the editorial board Pronaszko acted as the painting
section manager instead of Stazewski. This issue, too, was
a fancy item with its 201 pages. The editorial "Tempo
architektury" ("The Pace of Architecture") was by Syrkus.
The general considerations of the concept of function in
architecture were replaced by detailed discussions on the
new materials and technologies in building. On the other
hand, the article brought critical remarks about the specu-
lative architecture of Malevich in which purely plastic
values predominated over the social and technological
factors. The section devoted to painting brought a paper
by Pronaszko on the meaning of colour in the process of
integration of an architectonic interior, and a short exposi-
tion by Mondrian presenting the principles of neoplasti-
cism. Besides, the issue contained texts on theatre, film
and poetry. The final part was filled by detailed photo-
graphic documentation of works exhibited by the group
members on the Universal National Exhibition in Poznan.
The reproductions of plastic works, rather randomly selec-
ted, were quite varied: beside abstract paintings by
Malevich and Niez-Borowiak, there were figurative works
by painters belonging to the broader circle of modern art.
The typographical setting of "Praesens", elaborate but
remote from experiments of "Blok", featured constructivist
solutions in their academic phase.
Dzwignia
The editor and publisher of "Dzwignia" ("The Lever") was
Mieczystaw Szczuka. No 1 appeared in March 1927. The
periodical grouped leftist intellectuals; literary problems
predominated in it, and the greatest emphasis was put on
social issues. Among the contributors there were activists
of the Polish labour movement, among them Jerzy Hempel,
Andrzej Stawar, Witold Wandurski. The editorial note
introducing the first issue clearly precised the ideological
approach of the magazine: " ... The utility and effective-
ness of our work will best be controlled by strict adherence
to the Marxist basis, the employment of the method of
historical materialism, both where we shall critically X-ray
the symptoms of Polish cultural life, exposing their class
social background, and where we shall lay foundations
for totally new endeavours ... ".
Among the materials on the plastic arts there was a trans-
lation of letters by Alexander Rodchenko from Paris, writ-
\
\~
ten during the preparation of the Soviet pavilion on the
International Exhibition of Decorative Art in 1925. During
the stay of Malevich in Poland, Szczuka stepped forward
with a sharp attack against suprematism, presenting him-
self as an adherent of the productivist approach. In the
July issue of 1927 there was a programme statement of
Szczuka "Art and Reality" and a text by Wandurski, illustra-
ted by several stage designs, on the "Workers' Stage in
l6dz", a theatre organized and managed by the poet.
After the death of Szczuka in 1927, No 5 was edited by
Teresa Zarnower, and the majority of materials were
devoted to the memory of Szczuka. We can suppose that
the typographical setting of this issue was also designed
by Zarnower; the earlier settings, very simple, were elabo-
rated by Szczuka and Zarnower in collaboration.
The editor in chief for the last three issues was Wandurski;
the cover for the eights and last issue of Juli 1928 was
designed by Karol Hiller. After Szczuka's death, plastic
themes gave way completely to literary and social issues.
The articles, ever more sharp in their political contents,
had to face repressions inflicted by the authorities. Number
six was confiscated, and one of the charges was the publi-
cation of a fragment of the famous book by John Reed
"Ten Days that Shook the World", relating the events of the
October Revolution.
Forma
No 1 was published in l6dz in May 1933; the last, No 6,
appeared in July 1938. The publication of the magazine
was irregular. It was financially sponsored by the Associa-
tion of Plastic Artists, and subsequently by the reorganized
Trade Union of the Polish Plastic Artists in l6dz. The editor
from No 1 to 5 was Karol Hiller, and for No 6, the last one,
Stefan Wegner, a former member of the editorial board
together with Aniela Menkes, Jerzy Krauze and Wtadystaw
Strzeminski.
In opposition to such publications as "Blok" or "Praesens",
the magazine was not an organ of any definite artistic
orientation. However, the fact that the management was
trusted to artists connected with the avantgarde gave
priority to problems of recent art and discussions around
it. In the subsequent issue of the magazine, Hiller, Strze-
miriski and younger artists grouped around them could
many times give vent to their views; perhaps in relation
with the current problem of organization of the lnternatio-
49
nal Collection of Modern Art in l6dz, stress was laid upon
the relationships between modern art and past develop-
ments .
From a different standpoint , very significant was a state-
ment by Katarzyna Kobro on functionalism, being a sum-
mary of the artist's thoughts on art; a paper by Hiller
discussing the technique of heliography; a discussion
between Chw istek and Strzeminski ; and finally, a reprint
of an extensive essay by Malevich on suprematism .

Andrzej Turowski

Cat. 29 Stazewski 1930

50
 27 Henryk Stazewski , Composition , painting , 1926
Katarzyna Kobro and Wtadystaw Strzemil'iski
Artistic Activities
During the October Revolution
The beginnings of the artistic activity of Katarzyna Kobro
were indissolubly linked with the first steps in art of Wta-
dystaw Strzeminski. They both started on this road in the
days that ware decisive for the fate of the Revolution. In
those days, scattered avantgarde endeavours , supported
by the new Soviet authorities, were given the opportunity
to determine the image of art in the USSR.
In 1917 Kobro entered the Moscow School of Sculpture
and Drawing . By a decree of May 30, 1918 the school was
subjected to the control of the NKP (Commissariat for
Popular Education) and later on transformed into the Sec-
ond Free State Workshops (VKHUTEMAS) by a decree
signed by Lenin on November 29, 1920. After the reorgani-
zation the school was divided into several autonomous
workshops directed by invited artists . Students could
select any workshop according with their views and lik-
ings . The school was remarkable for the tender attitude of
professors to the individualities of their students. Kobro
left the school in the middle of 1920, before the formation
of the VKHUTEMAS.
Artistic studies of Strzeminski remain a mystery. He
stated himself that in 1919 he studied in Moscow , probably
in the First Free Workshops, where Kasimir Malevich was
one of the professors . By that time he exhibited a lot and
he was active in the IZO (Fine Arts Section of the NKP) . In
1919 his paintings were selected by the IZO NKP among
those that had to serve the task of propagating modern art.
In the same year he took part in exhibitions in Moscow
and Riazan, presenting the " Relief", the " Study cigarettes",
cubistic still lives etc . Two works from this period are
extant in the collection of the Russian Museum in Lenin-
grad, permitting to define the place of Strzeminski in the
Russian avantgarde : the "Still life" , shows a typically cubist
linear pattern; the other picture, "Tools and products of
industry - a counter-relief" unites painting with elements
of assemblage encircling the composition. There is metal,
wood and cork . Painted fragments with rich texture pass
into ready made materials. This picture proves that by 1919
Strzeminski was still close to the suggestions of Vladimir
Tatlin . A similar dependence could be observed in works
by Kobro. Her sculpture, known from reproductions and
probably identical with the " Structure " exhibited in 1920,
is formally simi lar to Tatlin 's works. In it and in works by
Strzeminski there was nothing that could point to any
relations with the theory of suprematism by Malevich . A
break in the ir views was probably caused by the "1st State
Exhibition of Paintings by Local and Moscow Artists"
organized in December 1919 in Vitebsk. Among its partici-
pants were : Natan A ltman, David Burlyuk, Vassily Kan-
dinsky, Ivan Klyun, Alexander Rodchenko , Olga Rozanova.
The exhibition, organ ized by Malevich, was the first com-
mon venture of the futu re members of the group UNOVIS
(Affirmation of New Art) : Nikolai Kunin , El Lissitsky , Kasimir
Malevich and Wtadystaw Strzeminski. The exhibition in
Vitebsk was the beginning of the the close collaboration
between Strzeminski and Malevich which lasted for a few
years. They both participated in UNOVIS exhibitions in
1920 and 1921 in Vitebsk and Moscow.
Strzeminski 's pictures enjoyed a high opinion of the con-
temporaries . They were included into the collection of the
Museum of Artistic Culture (inventory numbers 298, 374)
which included the most eminent works created during the
Revolution. After the collection had been overtaken by the
Russian Museum in 1926, as late as 1927 his relief was
displayed in an exposition as an example of the " New
trends in art " , beside a work by Tatlin. Strzeminski 's refuta-
tion of the direction called by him "Tatlinism" was thus not
only a fight for the victory of new forms in art, but also a
refutation of his own previous creation . Strzeminski wrote :
" Tatl inism is identical with cubism marked by a weak
tension of form and a general mechanical-technical and
material feeling of contents. Because of its immature form ,
it brings forth the tricks of sophistication of the material.
Tatlin, a man of low culture , saw the reliefs by Picasso in
his workshop, but he only understood that they contained
juxtapositions of various materials " . Criticizing Tatlin,
Strzeminski also judged his own reliefs and the earliest
works by Kobro; he was determined to cancel what he
believed to have been an error . He came back to cubism ,
the "crossroads " of modern art , from which all researches
took their start - some of them creative , other ones re-
actionary (to the latter group Strzeminski dismissed , e. g.,
purism) . He wanted to pursue a way that would lead
towards " ... a purification of art from alien means, the way
of objectless art. On this way , the first and until now the
most powerful eruption of constructional art has been
suprematism (. .. ) ; the contents of suprematism are dynam-
ic-cosmic events , occuring in unmeasured space; a har-
53

mony of the universe of forms which are organic in their
geometricality".
In 1920 Strzeminski found himself in Smolensk, in summer
Kobro came there too and they got married. Strzeminski
worked in the Guberniyal Section of Education and he was
a manager responsible for artistic propaganda in the
Smolensk section of ROSTA (the Russian Telegraphic
Agency). Kobro taught in the school of ceramics and made
stage designs for the local theatre. They both produced
many posters which have not been found until now, but we
can guess from what those who saw them said that they
could more than stand comparison even with the best
of the fine revolutionary Soviet posters. The small distance
between Smolensk and Vitebsk (about 120 km) facilitated
continuous contacts of Mr and Mrs Strzeminski with
Malevich and Lissitsky. Malevich was a frequent visitor in
their workshop and it was in Smolensk that he published in
1921 his work "Concerning the Fine Arts ". The IZO-studio in
Smolensk run by Strzeminski and Kobro in 1920 and 1921
was in fact a section of the "Suprematist Academy" in Vi-
tebsk and of the group UNOVIS affiliated to it. Similarly as
in Vitebsk, the curriculum included a study of the de-
velopment of news forms in art from impressionism to the
most recent tendency which was by then suprematism. One
of the artists who 1.ived in Smolensk reported : " The work-
shop was full of all sorts of boxes, pieces of tin, sawdust,
glass objects. This was the palette of constructivism.
Those sundry materials put together yielded works fan-
tastic in form, lacking any relation whatever to the real
world". The main aim of the UNOVIS group was the pro-
duction of new forms; its programme was a continuous
development of the language of art and an attainment in
this way only of the most economic and rational forms,
warranting a steady progress. The activity of the group
came to a stop when Malevich and then Lissitsky and
Strzeminski left Vitebsk. The last public appearance of
UNOVIS as a group was a participation in an exhibition
organized in Petrograd in 1923.
Different views were represented by a Moscow group
OBMOKHU (The Union of Young Artists) founded in 1920.
Its main field of activity was utilitarian constructivism.
Some of the group members went as far as to deny com-
pletely the "easel art" and produced only useful objects;
the others also were .close to the belief that art is not legi-
timate, and production is the most essential thing . Strze-
minski appreciated the achievements of some members
54
28 Henryk Stazewski, Composition, painting, 1926
of OBMOKHU (Medunetsky, Rodschenko, the Stenberg bro-
thers), at the same time emphasizing the significance of
the art of Ko bro who, among the members of UNOVIS, stood
closest to them: "Beside them stands out the most ta-
lented sculptor among the young, Kobro; her suprematist
sculptures are a phenomenon of European importance; her
works are a real step forward, an attainment of unattained
values; they are not an imitation of Malevich, but a par-
allel creation".
Among the works produced during that period we know
the picture by Strzeminski dated in 1921, being a fragment
of an earlier composition probably made around 1919. The
picture, now in the National Museum in Warsaw, is close
both to the "Still life" and to the "Tools and products of
industry " ; it also juxtaposes various textures in its painted
surface. Beside, one of the suprematist compositions of
Strzeminski is extant under a picture painted later. The
plastic ideas of Kobro from this time are usually described
as related to suprematism, but in fact there is more of pure
construction in them than of conscious molding of supre-
matist problems. They were not returns to the earlier re-
searches from the Tatlin circle, but rather efforts in a di-
rection close to the works by Naum Gabo from the years
1920-1922 and by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy who constructed
spatial patterns on a similar principle beginning from 1921.
The use of suspended, vibrating or partly mobile forms
placed Kobro's realizations among the first kinetic ex~-
periments. However, it was not the essential tendency in
her art. Potential movement of forms or of a single form in
a series was treated more as a means to bring to life the
dynamics, more and more intensive due to the changing
patterns. No text by Kobro concerning the problems of
kinetics or at least of kinetic rhythms has been extant. "The
rhythm of movements and closures, the rhythm of verticals
closed by horizontals, rhythm as a function of movement
of ever changing intensity ... ", as worded by Strzeminski,
was remarkable for her subsequent architectonical plastic
works. However, the early sculptures of Kobro were se-
riously involved in the problem of time and space; they
were the first experimental phase leading to pure, synthe-
tic patterns, set in rhythm by constant numerical formulas
of surfaces defining divisions of space.
Janusz Zag rodzki

Reconstruction of Katarzyna Kobro's Sculptures
When in 1967 I started to study Katarzyna Kobro 's art,
was faced by the problem of reconstructing her works.
Some of them perished during the last world war . Many
of her " Abstract Sculptures " and " Space Compositions"
have been destroyed. Kobro's avantgarde art was repre-
sented by a handful of works preserved at the Art Museum
in l6dz. As a result of an intensive search carried out by
the Museum, two compositions were found in l6dz but the
rest was only known from photographs. Yet it seemed
possible to reconstruct some of her sculptures because of
constant mathematical relations on which their construc-
tion was based. As a result of a detailed analysis of the
artist's preserved works it became possible to determine
the general principles of their construction, applied in dif-
ferent periods of her creative activity . At the beginning ,
she applied a constant proportion unit - a coefficient of
dimensions of all shapes. The method of multiplying the
basic unit , which in subsequent discussion will be referred
to as M, is contained in the only preserved "Abstract
Sculpture" (1) made in 1924. Its fundamental element is a
sphere, the position of which is a resultant of gravita-
tional vectors which run along the system of straight lines
determined by the edges of glass planes and by a curve
reminiscent of Bernouille 's lemniscate. The sphere 's ra-
dius which is equivalent to both the first term and the
difference of an arithmetic series, is a basic unit on the
basis of which Kobro derived all the remaining dimensions.
In 1925 Katarzyna Kobro changed her system, introducing,
apart from the modular unit , the principle of equal pro-
portions of different lengths and surfaces. A recovered
fragment of " Space Sculpture" (made in 1925) was used
for the first reconstruction.
It contained a uniform relation between its linear dimen-
sions which were multiplications of the basic unit. They
amounted to: 9 M, 13.5 Mand 20 M, showing a proportion
of 2 :3.
9 13.5 2 infinite possibilities of introducing linear and spatial divi-
kM=
13.5 20 3
= constant
Quantities derived from these proportions were used in
order to acquire the remaining linear dimensions which
may be presented in the following way:
29 Henryk Stazewski, stage design, 1926
38 = 20 + (9 + 9) 33 ,5 = 20 + (13,5)
47 = 20 + (9 + 9 + 9) 47 = 20 + (13,5 + 13,5)
In 1968 , by applying these principles, the isosceles triangle
forming the base of the sculpture , and the radius of a
compressed rim were reconstructed. Bolestaw Utkin, a
former pupil of Strzeminski and Kobro, made the mis-
sing parts using wood and sheet steel.
The reconstruction work was resumed in 1970. New re-
constructions were based on photographs of "Suspended
Compositions" from the years 1921 - 22, and of "Abstract
Sculpture" (2) from about 1924. Prototype mock-ups of
these sculptures were used in a documentary short film
"Kompozycje przestrzenne Katarzyny Kobro " (Katarzyna
Kobro 's Space Compositions) made by Jozef Robakowski
in cooperation with Janusz Zagrodzki. The "Suspended
Sculpture " (2) made of ready made objects including a
hack -saw, a steel trestle, a wheel and rim was the easiest
to reconstruct. It was based on a hack-saw of identical
shape, and the remaining parts were calculated accord-
ing to its dimensions. The reconstruction of "Abstract
Sculpture" (2) was also started. Its dimensions are
calculated according to the principles applied in the only
preserved sculpture from the same period. Here again we
find a modulated unit whose multiplication gives the dimen-
sions of all shapes. It is a key to the whole composition -
both to its optical and numerical arrangement. M = 3.5,
often taking the form of 2 M = 7. In this sculpture, Kobro
combined static and kinetic forms making an integral com-
position. Utkin took part in its reconstruction making du-
rable copies of both sculptures. In 1972 "The Suspended
Composition" (1) and "Abstract Sculpture" (3) were re-
constructed . This was done by Utkin himself and, in spite
of certain controversies, his work is an interesting pro-
position .
In the years 1925-28 Kobro finally changed her principles
of constructing sculptures. The modular system did not
suffice to solve all structural problems. She started ex-
periments in order to invent a method that would open
sions. Looking for a method allowing to express an internal
harmony of forms, she turned to Pythagoras' doctrine
according to which common numbers and their mutual
relations are subordinated to the rules of nature, and the
so-called golden division is the most natural proportion. In
consequence, Kobro got interested in Fibonacci's (Leo-
55
 30 Aleksander Rafafowski, Assemblage, 1923, replica
1970

•••••
•••••••
••••••••
••••••
•••••••
•••••••
•••••••
•••••••

nard of Pisa) series of primary numbers. Each element in mensions allowed her to discover the value of a modular
this series is equal to the sum of the former two elements, unit (M = 8) and the series of multiplied values:
and the limit of the series, that is a constant exponent of 1M : 1M
the golden division , is determined by the quotient of 1 M 2M
neighbouring values appearing in consecutive approxima- 2M : 3M
tions. 3M : SM
SM : BM
0 1 2 3
2 3 5 Taking as her starting point the 1 : 1 proportion which is
the basis of all symmetrical arrangements, she finally
00 2 1.5 1(.6) educed the 5: 8 proportion, achieving an absolute unity of
forms. Her simple geometrical composition is an expres-
sion of a dynamic balance of time-and-space structure
5 8 13 21 34 55 whose natural physical forces achieve natural equilibrium.
8 13 21 34 55 89
Janusz Zagrodzki
1.6 1.625 1.6154 1.6190 1.6176 1.6182

fn+l = fn + fn-1
with n = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ... , + oo
fn = nth term of the series
fn+l = the next term of the series a constant exponent of
the series (its limit, if n - + oo)
lim fn+l
K= n - 00 fn
It is on the basis of this numerical series, this romantic
formula of life whose dimensions are subordinated to a
superior organization of natural harmony of proportions
that Kobro built her system. In making her sculptures, she
usually used the first terms of Fibonacci's series:
2,3,5,8, 13,21
which she then multiplied by 3, thus receiving the follow-
ing series
6,9, 15,24,39,63

on which the construction of " Space Compositions" was

based. The last three terms she changed into 25, 40 and 64.
The last reconstruction is the work of the team including
Barbara Brzezinska, Lech Siemienowicz and Janusz Zag-
rodzki. The sculpture is a full implementation of the
author's conclusions drawn from the harmony of propor-
tions contained in Fibonacci's series. The rhythm of di-

56
 •1u •01m•n1
UJ•o1 ,o,.
.....
ID
cD.101=-
DI • DI
c· 11111

11111.m,.n1111
• C1ucCU1C =
Co1UJ1111•-.1
u ...
·mc,:,1o=_a=ro:,
n1 ... 011U.m.

Samuel Szczekacz and Samuel Zur, Composition of letters,

c.1938

Polish Constructivism. Source Material
Selected and edited by Andrzej Turowski
Tadeusz Peiper "Modern City. Mass. Machine"
("Miasto. Masa. Maszyna " ), Zwrotnica 1922, No 2 (July):
The paper was reprinted in T. Peiper's book "T~dy"
("This Way") published in Warsaw in 1930. The present
translation has been made from the original edition; the
short synopses preceding each of the three chapters, as
well as a few paragraphs, marked in the text, have been
left out. The paper "Modern City. Mass. Machine" was a
development of the programme published in the first issue
of the journal. Peiper pointed in it to three groups of
phenomena expected to exert their impact upon the shape
of art, but along different lines than in the Futurists' pro-
grammes: the Modern City is a dynamic orderly way of life;
the Mass is the society as the source of functional order;
the Machine symbolizes the essence of production and
creation. The paper thus offers a survey, in very general
terms, of all the main ideas of Constructivism.
31 Aleksander Rafatowski, Still Life, painting, 1924
Tadeusz Peiper
Modern City. Mass. Machine.
Being an aggregate of people linked together by the
prospect of advantages resulting from a common life, a
city has been developing according with the current re-
quirements. Its nature as an aggregate implied limitations
set upon individual will. The aim for which the aggregate
has been put together implied an elevation of the principle
of utility to the level of a supreme norm of development.
Those two features have been molding the growth of the
city according with the most vital interests of the com-
munity . A whim or obstinacy of individuals, or else ·some
outdated systems of ideas, could have slanted the line of
development of the city for a shorter or longer period, but
they were unable to push it in a direction other than de-
termined by the demands of life.
Obedient to their call, the city has been always renewing
itself. The common interests have been stronger than any
other considerations and they required various new ways
of satisfying them. Thus , novelties have been continuously
produced by the city. This innovatory nature of it has been
a cause of its constant conflict with the inherited modes of
thought. The most recent products of the city brought
about reluctance in so-called cultural man, i. e., in those
who most strongly influence the shaping of the attitude of
the collective mind to the environment. Life has been
changing; the city, which is trail and trace of life, has been
changing; only the en lighted people remained unchanged.
Between the inclinations of man which evolve very slowly,
and the city which has been changing constantly, arose a
state of an inner quarrel. Even the outer appearance of the
city, shaped each time in accordance with the new de-
mands of life, must have displeased the contemporaries.
The novelties introduced by the city in its outer look have
had their source in economic needs and in convenience,
and it was this source, wrongly neglected, that disparaged
the novelties in the feelings of polite individuals. Indeed,
every city in each phase of its development must have
seemed ugly to the contemporaries. It could have buildings
or streets acknowledged as beautiful, but they were cer-
tainly ancient streets and buildings. But what was arising
spontaneously, as an expression of life, caused a gesture
of refusal in the inhabitants, and only when it was covered
with the hoar of time, when it grew into the melancholy
59

haze of the past, only then it could bribe the feelings of
onlookers. In this way the narrow, curved streets became a
tourists' dainty. When they were arising, they were a result
of some actual needs, and certainly the homely aesthetes
felt resentment, repugnance or indignation against them.
But as soon as they became a part of the image of the past,
they shared in the attraction of things that are no longer
with us.
The affective reluctance towards the city has had another
background, too: a social background. Originally, the city
was a product and habitat of a social class not at all
favoured by those who determined the values by then.
Who created the scale of values in the epoch when cities
arised? Intellectual hacks of the feudals and church writers.
Both had a long series of historical motives to place the ·
burgher on the lowest steps of the social and cultural
ladder . The degraded position of the burgher class was
transferred to the city as its work; in comparison with a
feudal castle, haughtily lonely, with its polite forms of life,
with its huge wardrobes of tradition never aired by the
winds of time, the city must have seemed to be a rude
product of common and vulgar demands of the practical
life. Among its allies there was no aristocratic glamour, no
splendour of the respected and admired social class; it
could not force up the respectful distance which is the
maker of the myth and of eminence. And then, when the
things were changed because of the French Revolution,
new social circumstances emerged that kept up the reluc-
tant attitude to the burgher and city. The French Revolution
emancipated the burgher and gave him the material power
over the world. But it gave him no moral power . The 19th
century created the socialist idea which attracted the best
minds and permeated all the systems of thought of the
epoch. Socialism became a new source of reluctance
towards the burgher, and indirectly - certainly against its
true ideals - by imperceptible, unpredicted and undesired
affective extensions, it helped to shape a negative attitude
of men to the cities. Envy from above and hatred from
below united together in human sensibility and made up
in it a new chemical compound: a contempt for the bour-
geois and for his product, the city. The bourgeois brought
libel upon the city.( ... )
Among the elements of the city that will certainly influence
art, the mass and the machine are perhaps the most im-
portant.
60
32 Maria Niez-Borowiak, Project for a kiosk, 1926
II
An ever greater growth of urban agglomerations ... An
ever greater differentiation of societies ... An ever greater
dependence of an individual on the organized mass. The
growing significance of associations ... National celebra-
tions and festivals in which crowds participate ... The
growing political influence of the people ... Its participa-
tion in the cultural life, constantly increasing ... Mani-
festations of workers which make the mass visible ... The
mass begins to be more and more conspicuous on the
foreground. It is more and more intensely felt by an indi-
vidual because of his dependence on it, and it becomes
more and more remarkable because of the new forms in
which it appears. The mass as the society and the mass as
a throng exerts its ever stronger impact upon human mind.
There is no doubt that sooner or later it will also influence
art.
The postulate of construction with which we approach
every work of art, is not merely a professorial requirement
of aesthetics. It can be found out as the supreme demand
in all fields of human activity. The postulate of artistic
construction is the outer cover of the postulates of life
itself. The constructing of a work of art is bringing an
order into the chaos, coercing the undetermined into the
arranged. Now, order is not only an artistic requirement,
but also a vital need. It makes life easier; it becomes the
ground for the possibility of group coexistence of people;
it controls the relation of one man to another; it saves a man
a valuable amount of time and effort; it makes the distance
between a hand and a fruit smaller; it pads life with con-
venience. Because of its biological role, the need for an
order has been extened into all the branches of human
activity. Science is the making of order; politics is the
making of order; artistic creation is the making of order.
In a work of art, the ordering comes about constantly and
on the ground of certain schemes. Those schemes are as
stiff as the hardly changing idea of orderliness imposed
upon them, but at the same time they are as flexible, as the
most primitive desire for novelty requires. But in their most
essential outlines, those schemes have been hardly
changing at all, or only very slowly. It is most conspicuous
in painting. In epochs of the most intensely conscious
constructive pursuits, a painterly composition was based
on patterns close to geometrical figures 1 • It has not stepped
beyond those patterns until the recent days. Cezanne,
Matisse, Derain: dyed geometry 2 • But the number of geo-
metrical patterns is limited. The possible varieties have

to be exhausted. Indeed, the compositions based on such
patterns become more and more similar to each other.
They are repeated. Some shift of an axis, some minor
blurring of a line, or some more generous parting of an
angle may be introduced, but the main design of the
framework remains unchanged . And it begins to be dull.
But then a new tendency emerges, of course an opposite
one: schemes are rejected altogether . Simple patterns are
aside and chaos is reintroduced. An arrangement has be-
come a bore, long live decay. The postulate of order is
banished . The history of composition in painting is a tennis
match between geometry and un-form.
The question arises , if there is possible some form of
artistic order that, not being supported on the more and
more dull geometricism, could still become the principle
of a strict and logical construction of a work of art.
It seems to me. that such a form of order is possible and
that sooner or later it will find its way into the field of art.
It is the concept of organicity which is such form. It is an
organism that on some day will become the model for the
construction of a work of art. The several parts of a work
will be related to each other by a strict functional de-
pendence which will constitute the only unity of the work.
The construction of a work of art will become much more
complex . The relation between its several parts will be
more remote , but no less strict. The unity of a work will
not be a reflection of the unity of its theme or scheme, but
a result of the irrevocable , organic arrangement of its
parts . We do observe organic relationships of this kind
around us. We encounter them in the world of nature.
Doubtless , they alone could suggest us the idea of con-
structive organicity. But the natural organisms usually
possess still another property , beside their specific (or-
ganic) structure that might serve as a source of inspiration
for composition, a property that neutralizes their merit :
they are usually symmetrically built. Thus, together with
the organic, they also suggest a symmetrical and thus
geometrical construction which has until now been the
principle of arrangement of works of art and which cannot
be left behind . But there is an organism which is not
burdened by the dull and ever more insufferable order of
geometry: it is the mass-society . It is the most marvelous
organism, more beautiful than anything that nature has
created : complex and precise in its functioning as a
machine ; built on the principle of the most close func-
tional interrelations; making them ever more close and
33 Maria Niez-Borowiak, Profiles, painting , c.1930
thereby ever more intensely uniform; producing the most
sophisticated order that can be imagined ; the mass-
society: the wonderful, most organic organism. And more-
over: the organism whose construction and functioning
is seen and felt by all of us, the organism at which we do
not look from outside , but in which we are remaining, the
organism which maintains itself on us, on our persons
and work, which is made by every hour of our own life.
This organism hypnotises, influences an individual , con-
ceives in it a new instinct of order, than a new image of
order, than a new idea of order. And even if the inherent
needs of art did not demand a renovation of the principles
of construction, still this new image of order would have
to be automatically extended into the world of artistic
creation. The inherent needs of art make this process
desirable and call for its conscious carrying out. We can
be sure that it will be carried out. The mass-society will
impose its construction upon art. Organicity, best known
to us from the functioning of society , will become the
inspiration for artistic construction. A work of art will be
socially organized . A work of art will be the society.
And this is one way in which, as it seems to me, the mass
will express itself in art. It will be the expression of the
mass as an organized community, as the mass-organism
and the mass-society. But there are forces active in our
epoch which will cause that art will also express the mass
as a simultaneous set of individuals , the mass-sum, the
mass-throng.
One of the most significant features of our epoch is an
invasion of the economic factor into all the spheres of
human activity. The mythology of every deed is a history
of money. It is the relation between income and expendi-
tures that determines every undertaking, makes it either
possible or impossible. It would be unnatural indeed, if
this law had missed art. It has not missed it. Artistic
creation, like any other, feels the whip of the economic
laws. The link between aesthetics and economy becomes
more and more powerful. There are some who assume
Catonic airs on this account, and if they are not bald, they
tear their hair in exasperation , or they exert their throats
if they have none , shouting out : 0 temporal The Parnassus
has fallen down to the level of a shop counter! Apollo has
publicly taken on Mercury 's costume, and if the Muses
have not changed their garments, it is only because their
transparency makes it easier for them to come to terms
with profiteers. 0 mores!
61
 Take it easy, gentlemen . The relationship between aesthe-
tics and economics becomes more and more close in-
deed , but: why shouldn 't we use it up to the advantage of
art? Well, now . We have only to realize the hard facts ; to
find new artistic advantages in them; to take them for
granted ; to build on them. Rather then opposing against
the economic laws that govern the whole of contemporary
art, we should better adjust to them and use them up to
the advantage of art. It's better to follow them in order to
rob them out of everything that they can give to art. To
surrender in order to force them to serve . Only ridiculous
Don Quixotes , or those who have chosen to be so ridic-
ulous in order to exploit this kind of martyrdom, can
consider it as a degradation of art. The new conditions
must be taken as a fact and then used up for artistic pur-
poses.
But in what way? Like this, for example:
We all know that any artistic agent looks at his enterprise
from the standpoint of profit. The most important factor in
his calculations is a hope for a mass sale. He is apt to
invest the more labor , care and - ! - innovation , the greater
is the number of consumers seen by him in his dreams, or
the greater the probability of a big profit. This form of
artistic mass consumption obviously influences the forms
and direction of the artistic production . A book, a news-
paper, a collective exhibition of paintings3, a concert hall ,
a theatre, a cinema house , are examples charged with
strong rhetoric. But this influence has been seen until now
more in negative than in positive aspects. The reason: artists
have not ca red for the purely artistic advantages that can
be drawn from the economic advantages of mass con-
sumption. It has not occured to t hem that they might make
artistic uses of this new and so very modern phenomenon.
Nevertheless, the mass character of art istic consumption
opens up new perspectives for art. In many cases it
allows for wholly new creative efforts .
I cannot deal with all the artistic possibilities which are
involved by mass consumption. I'll illustrate my point re-
ferring to the theatre . A theatre is a costly enterprise. No
theatre art ist can realize the full scope of his visions, for
reasons which plot stealthily, lurking in the blue squares
of the cash book. Everything is brought to a deadlock by
the costs. Mass consumption makes the costs relatively
lesser . Even if very much money must be invested, the
prospect of the possible profits makes the invested sums
negligible . Now , in the theatre the mass character of con-
62
sumption could be used up more easily than in any other
domain of art. Two things are necessary : a building that
would give room to an audience of a few thousands and
a show appropriate for such a mass. Such efforts have
been already made in Germany and in France. The fact
that they have been made , and that they 've been made by
people known for their sensitivity to the voice of economy
(Reinhardt) speaks in their favour. The fact that these
efforts have not always been successful, does not speak
against them. For in this case the failure has not originated
from the idea of the mass theatre itself, but rather from a
fallacious realization of this idea. A few thousands seats
in an amphitheatre are not sufficient. An appropriate show
is necessary. No Oedipus would fill in the new theatre
spaces. An audience of a few thousands and an appro-
priate show for the thousands hearts - and there we are .
A new pageant is necessary, different from everything
that was, a show of today, grown from the instinct, interest,
feeling and taste of the man of today. How to produce it?
To think about it. To understand its budget and artistic
merits; to apprehend the laws of affective resonance
between the new stage and the new audience; to peel out
of the technique the reserves of miracle working hidden
in it - and the thing will be done . The first steps towards
an initiating of a mass theatre could be made even today.
Every nation has its ceremonies, the participants of which
appear in the form of a mass-crowd. Now , it is sufficient
to use up for theatrical purposes the very presence of that
mass, its need for a crowded entertainment and its pur-
chase power , to obtain a mass theatre. ( ... )
Ill
In 1911, as a student of the Berlin University, during some
holidays I went to Kopenhagen. Neither the time, nor the
place of destination of this travel play any role here . The
whereabouts of reminiscences, no more. In connection
with the consideration of the aesthetic problem of the
machine, those reminiscences are revieved, reminding me
of one of the ideas that was born for the first time in my
mind by then. I was visiting an ethnographical museum .
I stopped longer in the rooms devoted to the prehisto rical
times . The deity of whim kept me for a particularly long
while among the specimens of the stone epoch . Long
ranges of stone works in the vitrines. Varied shapes,
varied uses, varied degrees of technical perfection. Among
the displayed objects, my attention was caught by some
34 Kasimir Malevich with friends at his one-man-show in
Hotel Polonia, Warsaw, 1927
tools shaped like sharpened slanting whetstones, amazing
by their ideal precision of form. Knives? Chisels: Chop-
pers? Axes? Doubtless, this, that, and something more
still. But this is not the main point. One series of those
knives had perfectly smooth surfaces, another was carved
with ornaments. A zigzag design with exactly equal ele-
ments, with an ideal feeling for symmetry. The ornament
could not serve any practical purpose. It was doubtless
made for the delight of hands and eyes. For the pleasure.
For such pleasure that is not very different in its nature
from the delight that arises in us from creating and be-
holding the beautiful. I was obviously facing the primary
beginnings of art.
I started to reflect upon the psychological process that
must have been completed in this primitive man for the
phenomenon which I observed to be born. What primitive
feelings must have been woven together, so that an orna-
ment could appear on a tool of this man, and that a zigzag
pattern could become its main element, and that its sym-
metric arrangement could be an inner need of the primi-
tive carver.
The form of a tool is always determined by its purpose.
The stone tool about which I am speaking must have been
given a sharpened whetstone shape on its end, because
such shape was best fitting the needs of life of a primitive
man; it was best adjusted to serve a number of tasks ,
rather than only one: to chop wood , to dig earth, to kill and
skin animals . But not only this general pointed arch shape
of the tool was a result of the needs of life; the necessity
of this, possibly the most symmetric elaboration, had the
same source. Originally, symmetry was a vital thing. If it is
so widespread in nature, it is because of the services
rendered by it in the struggle for survival. To fulfill its
practical task , a tool of a primitive man must have been
not only ogival, but also perfectly symmetrical. A stone
knife could be handled more conveniently, firmly and
effectively , as it was more perfectly symmetrical. Thus, it
seems to be self -evident that a primitive man tried hard to
obtain the shape of his tool that was as close as possible
to its purposeful ideal. It was by no means easy. If we
realize the lack of experience of the man of those times
and the simplicity of his means of work, we shall appre-
ciate, what amounts of time and toil has been put into each
of his objects. At the same time we'll understand that a
successful bringing to an end of the toilsome work must
have been for its author a source of a deep satisfaction
and strongly felt joy. Thus, the attaining of the ogive and
symmetrical form of the tool came to be associated in his
mind with a feeling of delight. The form meant for him the
beauty. Eventually, when routine allowed him to achieve
this form with less labor, he started to play with it and to
transfer it in .i smaller size upon the tool, covering it with
dashes and grooves. The ornament that I was looking at,
was probably just that. The zigzag indentation which was
its basic element, was a repetition of the pointed arch
shape of the end of the tool. And the perfect symmetry
remarkable for the whole ornament reflected the practical
advantages of the symmetrical shape of the whole tool.
Thus: the form of the tool dictated by the exigencies of
life became beautiful through the work of its maker. The
whole sequence would be thus like this: the needs of
life - the form of the tool involved by them - the work to
attain such a form - the delight of the achievement - the
form of the tool thus attained becomes to be beautiful for
its maker.
This was what happened with a stone tool. But a machine?
Why has the same process failed to occur in the case of
this modern tool? Why until now has the machine been
alien to man?
The process sketched above (I am quite aware of its
hypothetical character) could not occur in the machine
epoch mainly for the essential reason that the psycho-
logical links of the chain could not appear in our times.
Between the epoch of a stone tool and the epoch of a
machine tool the phenomenon of the division of labor
appeared. The people who develop and produce a machine
do not apply it in practice; they do not participate in that
part of its life in which it begins to fulfill its task. They fail
to see the strict relationship that exists between the con-
struction of a machine and its function . Hence , the lack
of the psychological links on which the new aesthetic
feeling could grow up; the lack of the peculiar delight that
is born from a comparison of the form of a tool with the
purpose which it should serve . A primitive man produced
his tools and he handled them. If he succeeded to hit the
required form, he could handle a tool more conveniently
and the output of his work was more abundant and
valuable. In each particular case, this relationship was
quite clear for a primitive man; it was not understood by
him, but grasped with his eyes, felt with his hands , tested
with his stomach. In such conditions, inventing a tool
whose form allowed for a better application could raise
63
35 Party in honour of Kasimir Malevich on the occasion
of his exhib it ion in Hotel Polonia, Warsaw, 1927
36 Henryk Stai:ewski , Cover of the magazine Praesens,
1926, No 1
purer and more full could be the impression! In time, a
sculptor would have to adjust to the new conditions in
which his work would be seen, he would have to account
for the motion of his sculpture and construe it so as to use
such motion for artistic purposes . Another example: to
introduce motion not under, but into a sculpture. The
several parts of a piece of sculpture would periodically
change their mutual relations and they would be arranged .
in new and new patterns. This would be not only a step
beyond the already exhausting store of really new sculp-
tural ideas, but at the same time an introducing of the
element of time , and thus of surprise , into the plastic arts.
Indeed, the same could also be done in painting by playing
movable painted bands against each other. In the theatre,
where the childish and na'ive piece a machine knew each
time to explore the latest achievements of technology, the
machine would be able to change everything, both in front
of and behind the curtain e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g from the actors '
wardrobe to the audience 's cloakroom, if there were
people who could think about a stage show as if it had had
no yesterday and as if it were us who would create it for
the first time. We and for us! In other fields of art, as in
music or even in poetry , the machine could directly or
indirectly (i. e. by introducing its new products) bring
about deep changes; but it is difficult to speak about them
without expos ing oneself to the charge of a utop ian mid-
wifery .
A reneval of art by the mach ine. Totally new domains
would be opened for artistic creation , tempting by the void
awaiting to be filled in, hypnothyzing by unpredicted
opportunities. Rather than to see the development of art
in consecutive steps forward and back again ; rather than
to suffer patiently the incessant ebbs and flows of ever the
same artistic ideas; rather than to introduce into the world
of art the changes that are, at their best , inches wide -
we can , by a single moment of collective reflection , by a
single act of collective will, start a work that will set us
free from the boredom of eternal repetitions; that will make
out of art something that has never been ; that will intro-
duce into it the elements apt to give it a completely new
shape; that will change it into an entity fitted to our present
needs , growing out of ourselves, out of us, the people of
this time . Until now, art has been a reiterating with its own
words of what the art of the past epochs had been saying.
But we can speak for ourselves instead of repeating; we
can create instead of imitating .
KWARTALNIK-, a,
-MODERNISTOW I 0
!{)
N
(!)
<i
z
w
0
PR AESENS
WARSZA
~l
1
In a literary composition, " geometrism " can appear in a
multitude of forms. We can hardly fail to see the prepon-
derant impact upon the structure of a drama, exerted by
the care that the acts be equal in length , or by the system
of symmetrical strophes upon the structure of a poem.
2
Picasso, in his period of the "circular" perspective, made
pictures completely remote from the old patterns and
pursuing an elaboration of a new form of order .
3 It is remarkable, how deeply painting has been in-
fluenced by the fact that it ceased to be a court art , work-
ing on commiss ion only, and that it became production
for an anonymous audience which would be reached by an
artist through an exhibition displaying a ready product.
Working on order, a painter must have been taking into
account the purpose and likings of the patron. Working for
an unknown customer, he takes into account himself only,
or else ... the predilections of the general public. This
difference sheds some light upon the recent phases of
the development of painting.
4 Or more exactly: of small parts of a machine. Specializa-
tion!
5 To choose a machine as a theme in art can have its
meaning as a demonstration. In this case, the machine
appears as a symbol of the new times . But the art of the
present cannot be satisfied with this.
65
 KWARTALN!K M0DERNIST6W .PRAESENS• CZERWIEC l~H Nr 1

,u:.o•t<CJA ' AOMINISTRAC.JA ,

we••••w• , S•nelo,eke 33 - Ill
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crry Jmu f• "' 11:rwartk l O - 7 pp .

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Bohdlln Laohert , .JOzet Maunow.
ski, Marja N lo:r:,Borowlakowa. Ale,
s z1. e o gr. kea nd er Rafalowekl, Henryk Ste,
towakl. Szymon Syrkue, .J6zol
12 zl. S::i:ani,jee, Stenlelaw Zalewekl

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Mieczyslaw Szczuka
" Reaction on the Environment ... "
("Reakcja otoczenia . . .") Zwrotnica 1923, No 4 (February).
The second part of this statement was reprinted in the
" Catalogue of the New Art Exhibition " (" Katalog Wystawy
Nowej Sztuki " ) organized in May 1923 in Wilno . In the
translation of the who le, the typography and the arrange-
ment of lines, probably designed by the artist himself, is
retained. This is one of the earliest theoretical texts by
Szczuka ; it brings the essence of his postulates, deve-
loped dur ing his whole later activity , concerning the ne-
cessity to develop new technologies in art, as well as to
make the creative efforts in all their phases fully depen-
dent on social issues.
Mieczyslaw Szczuka
Reaction on the Environment ...
1 (the mirror surface of brass - rough concrete)
REACTION ON THE ENVIRONMENT that has emerged
eithe r independently from man or has been created
by himself
THROUGH
the influences of the great achievements of con-
temporary civilization (the growth of cities, of the
means of communication (railways, ships, aviation),
of industry, international trade etc.
+ the influence of the stimuli of BEAUTY
( = pleasure + convenience)
+ the influence of NATURE
UPON A HUMAN BEING
CREATES
ART
11
CREATION OF FORMS THROUGH WHICH MAN
FILLS SPACE AND TIME WITH HIMSELF
2
ON THE MEANS IN ART
The use of materials influences the character of a solution,
e.g. associating iron with glass renders a different
construction than a flat picture or a piece of marble this
is why contemporary art ought to be enriched with
unexploited means
LIKE
MAKING USE OF THE CHARACTER OF A
MATERIAL CONSTRUCTIVE VALUES OF A
MATERIAL
(resilience, ductility, stiffness, endurance,
resistance)
THE TYPE OF THE PRESENTED SURFACE OF A
MATERIAL
(a broad plane of concrete and NOT a concrete bar)
(the sweep of an iron rod)
THE TYPE OF THE TEXTURE OF A SURFACE
(cloth and paper silk and wool)
THE DIFFERENT TEXTURE QUALITIES OF
MATERIALS
DEPENDING ON THE FINISH
(paint-coated or oxidated iron)
(giving the highest smoothness to wood by varnish)
(and the qualities of the same materials when they
are raw)
PECULIARITIES OF A MATERIAL EXPOSED
TO LIGHT
(the passing of light through glass and reflection
of light by copper)
THE ENORMOUS SCOPE OF POSSIBILITIES
TO USE ELECTRIC LIGHT
(complete lighting of any space)
(filling the space with any light shapes)
(e.g. a beam from a floodlight)
glowing surfaces (e.g . made of glass)
(incandescence of wire)
THE USES OF THE POSSIBILITY TO INTRODUCE
MOTION

66
37 Cover of Praesens, 1930, No 2

38 Henryk Stai:ewski , back of cover , for the magazine

Praesens , 1926, No 1

39 Helena Syrkus , Warsaw, c . 1935

3 THE WORKING CLASS

SELLING ITS
ON THE INSEPARABILITY OF THE PROBLEMS OF TIME AND LABOR HAS GOT NO
ART AND THE SOCIAL ISSUES OPPORTUNITY TO CREATE
ITS OWN ART
THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL
ROBS THE PEOPLE OF ALMOST ALL OF THEIR
TIME
FORBIDDING THEM
TO DEAL WITH ART
CONTEMPORARY LIFE PURSUING ONLY
THE MAXIMUM OF PROFIT AT A MINIMUM
OF THE INVESTED MEANS WHILE A PEASANT WHO WORKS
IMPRINTS IN PART FOR HIMSELF
A SPECIFIC HALLMARK ON CONTEMPORARY ART HAS CREATED ART
SO CALLED FOLK ART
HERE
IS THE REASON
OF SLOGANS IN ART

I \
AND OF THE SHORTHAND OF THE FORMS IN FUTURE
OF EXPRESSION WHEN THE NIGHTMARE OF EXPLOITATION
(a profit-bringing house - economy of every foot - WILL PERISH WHEN EVERYONE WILL LIVE IN A WAY
advantage and convenience at the same time) DICTATED BY THE FEELING
PEOPLE BUSY WITH THE STRUGGLE OF HIS OWN HAPPINESS
FOR SURVIVAL THE FORMS OF ART
HAVE GONE ASTRAY TOO
FROM ART WILL CHANGE
IT IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE IN A MANNER THAT CANNOT BE PREDICTED
IN OPPOSITION
TO
E. G. THE TIME OF THE RENAISSANCE WHEN
THE SLOWER
PACE OF LIFE
MADE IT
MORE POPULAR AND MORE WIDESPREAD

67
"Catalogue of the New Art Exhibition"
("Katalog Wystawy Nowej Sztuki"), Wilno 1923 (May).
The texts in the Catalogue were printed with diversified
types, in a sundry arrangement of typographical blocks
interrupted by graphical inserts. In the present reprint the
basic divisions are retained, but the arrangement is not
quite exactly reproduced. Out of the many utterances
published in the Catalogue, three have been selected.
The postulates formulated by Strzeminski present his
ideas, developed in many of his later papers, of the or-
ganic and autonomous character of a plastic work; these
ideas would be brought to their ultimate consequences in
the much later theory of unism. The remarks by Kajruksztis
are situated within a similar domain of problems, though
their emphasis on the dynamic element in a construction
of a picture certainly has had its origin in the author's
interest in the art of Malevich. The statement by Zarnower,
akin to the views of Szczuka, is the only known authorized
publication of the artist; stress is laid on the importance
of contemporary art as engaged in social issues.
Wtadystaw Strzeminski
I define Art . ..
I define art as creating
the unity of organic form by its
organicity parallel with nature
reproducing the existing
forms of the world is - reproduction
rather than creation
and thus it is not art.
Every being attains its organicity according with a law,
proper only for itself:
THUS FOR DEFINING
THE LAW OF ORGANICITY OF ARTISTIC
ENTITIES WE CANNOT TAKE THE LAW OF
STRUCTURE OF ANY OTHER THING.
(as it makes no sense to create a man on the image of a
bridge or a house or in the shape of a wasp)
To make a picture into an object is violence against
painting.
68
The principles of the law of forming pictorial entities:
- flatness, involved by the flatness of a canvas on its
stretcher
- geometrism of some parts of a picture, involved by the
geometrical shape of a stretcher
- localization of the painterly action within a picture
- an exponential growth of forms by a juxtaposition of
discrepancies
- economy of approach. Simultaneity of the phenomena.
It cannot be doubted that the art of yesterday (cubism,
suprematism) has an immense store of means, on which
the most perfect style of contemporary applied art could
be built, as the invention of electricity allowed to build
up the electrotechnics of the present day.
Forward without a pause
But I believe, that this is not the task of the art of strict
form that it must investigate what has been achieved and
steadily pursue a more perfect form, in order to warrant
the possibility of a continuous development of art. While
the application of what has already been won by it - is
the task of applied art. I sincerely wish it the greatest pos-
sible success in creating the style of the contemporary
epoch.
Witold Kajruksztis The Basis of Art is Construction
1. The basis - the sine qua non - of art is construction.
2. Construction unfailingly brings about a deformation of
the realistic form, and thereby
A BANKRUPTCY
of the »classical« principles
3. A contemporary artist ought to abandon the way of
Compromise (pseudo-neo-classicism)
and shift to
CREATING
PURE FORM
Note to point (1): painting without construction is not art,
but illustration - Essentially not at all different from a
photograph "taken in nature".
40 Szymon Syrkus, Warsaw , 1931

41 Szymon Syrkus , Fertilizers Pavilion, Powszechna Wys-

tawa Krajowa , (National Exposition), Poznan , 1929

Note to point (2) : DEFORMATION occurs when a pi-cture Teresa Zarnower

is constructed, because of two reasons:
a) the " real" forms of an object must be adjusted to the
organic unity of the picture ;
b) a " real " object always has in it some forms that have
arisen accidentally (as results of the struggle for survival
or utility), i.e. in ways inappropriate for plastic purposes.
A DESIRE TO SCRUTINIZE THE INSCRUTABLE IS THE
MOTOR OF CREATION
It assumes various forms in human investigations (reli-
gion , science, social movemen1s, art), employing various
means
THE MEANS OF ART ARE ASSOCIATIONS OF FORMS
which assume, in each historical period,

Note to point (3): NEW SHAPES

bringing about
NEW ART ,
by construing on one hand and on the other hand
PURE FORM , A PHYSIOLOGICAL STATE AN ASSOCIATIVE STATE
a reflex of pleasure calling forth a series of
is based upon objective equal to COMPARISONS
properties of the elements of painting, for - the satisfaction
a painterly-tectonic CONSTRUCTION here considered called forth by
means a building up on the surface of a picture = a cer- perfection
tain system : by entering of the purely PLASTIC ELEMENTS and richness of means
of art into relationships between each other and with the coupled with precision
picture: of performance

- by a common action of FORMS, LINES , COLOURS,
SPACES , SU-RFACES irrespective of the theme (in the
usual sense) .
The anatomical construction - cherished by the pseudo-
classics - has nothing in common with art, for its aim is a
strict anatomical reproduction (of a head , a body, rather
than the creation of a picture .
COLOUR - is a kind of ENERGY
and as such it has in itself the properties and Mathemati -
cal laws of the other variet ies of energy .
The present epoch, remarkable for its constant social
changes which are a result of the enormous growth of
CIVILIZATION AND TECHNOLOGY
HAS CHANGED
MAN
AND
HIS
FIELD OF VISION
E.G ., CHANGES IN LANDSCAPE.
A recession of forests - of the wild vegetation - in its
place the cubes of mills and houses - telegraph wires -
the regularity of highways - the ironworks of bridges and
sluice gates - banks of concrete - motion of transporta-
tion machines etc. Impressions coming from technology
are substituted for impressions coming from nature, and
perhaps they are in a way even closer to us. In the ma-
chines we enjoy their simplic ity and logic of construction
which finds its counterpart in the simplicity and logic of
a WORK OF ART. What is given in a work of art, are NOT
the differences between individual things, but rather their

69
70
 0

C
r

l
..... ' • ~/1
. ~·
'.

..__

71
see preceeding two pages 42/ 43
Work by the Praesens and "U" group, Warsaw, for the
fifth Congress of C. I. A. M. The illustrations are from "War-
szawa funkcjonalna" (Functional Warsaw) by Jan Chmie-
lewski and Szymon Syrkus .
a) The great transcontinental line of communication
(Europe-Asia)
b) The great inter-maritime communication (Baltic-Black
Sea) , in relation to a)
c) Local deformation of the transcontinental lines of
communication in Central Poland
d\ Chart of the land formation in the Warsaw region
basic mechanisms (e.g., not this or that man, but the hu-
man machine, melted into a single, permeating unity with
the space surrounding it).
CHANGING THE FIELD OF VISION, TECHNOLOGY HAS
CHANGED THE MEANS OF EXPRESSION BY INTRODUC-
ING NEW MATERIALS AND IT HAS BROADENED THE
SCOPE OF UNEXPECTED POSSIBILITIES.
E.G. If we introduce into sculpture (which is a solid, push-
ing off the air that surges upon it from all sides) mate-
rials requiring large surfaces, like concrete, iron and glass,
it is only on the streets, squares etc. that we can find
sufficiently great masses of air. There it will find its uses as
a monument which is not in discord with its surroundings.
A technical raising up of a monument made of concrete
and iron produces empty space inside which can be used
for practical purposes. In this way a work of art, without
losing its former significance, becomes UTILITARIAN.
In big cities, night is as tense and pulsating with life as
day, allowing for creative uses of the shapes of light
(raising statues, buildings, fountains calculated for light
effects). An artist can find the most UNIVERSAL opportu-
nity for expression in CINEMA-AND-THEATRE shows, in
which the united elements of the several branches of art
(painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, music, film,
dance) are supported by perfection of the technical means
(the use of electric energy). The means introduced by the
NEW ART eliminate the accidental offering MONUMEN-
TALITY conditioned
by
CONSTRUCTION
equal to
CAUSALITY AND INTERRELATION OF THE SHAPES
DETERMINING BALANCE.
72
e) Scheme to show the principal directions of communi-
cations in the Warsaw region
f) The functional arrangements of land constituting the
"Parades" of greater Warsaw
g) Scheme of housing zones in the extension of greater
Warsaw
h) Points of intersection of housing zones
i) Scheme of total urbanization of Greater Warsaw
j) Scheme of districts in which urbanization is actually
urgent
k) Existing chaos in the region of Warsaw
I) The theoretical scheme adapted to existing conditions,
lines of communication in the Warsaw region
Henryk Berlewi "Mechano-Faktur"
"Mechano-Faktura"), Warszawa 1924.
The translation has been made from the first edition, pub-
lished in Warsaw in the form of a booklet, early in March
1924. The text is integral; only a short introduction by
Aleksander Wat has been left out. "Mechano-Faktur " is
Berlewi's theoretical statement which would later become
a basis for his activities as a painter and designer. It is
the only developed theoretical motivation of the artist's
endeavours, situating him within the constructivist move-
ment. As the date of its writing the author gave June 1923,
during his stay in Berlin .
Henryk Berlewi
Mechano-Faktur
During the recent decades, in the period of decomposing
of traditional painting into its simplest elements, a new
factor has emerged and arisen to a predominant signifi-
cance in painting, the texture. Its essence is: 1) the sur-
face of the painted canvas itself; the way (direction) of
leading the brush and putting on paint; the thickness or
thinness of the paint layer; a mat or glossy finish, rough-
ness or smoothness; 2) the degree of intensity of colours,
the patina, or in a word, the aggregate of all that com-
poses the material side of painting .
Although texture has been existing ever since the beginn-
ings of painting, it has never been devoted attention as a
factor determining any value of a work whatever. Tex-
ture has been existing outside of the creative awareness,
without absorbing a painter's mind. It has been something
secondary and auxiliary; one obviously could not do with-
out it , but that was all.
It was the great revolt in the plastic arts (cubism, futurism)
that was necessary for the extremely emotionally loaded
opportunities inherent in texture to be revealed.
In what does the emotionality of the working of texture
consist?
A Russian theorist of texture, Markov, refined it, in his
very interesting but rather chaotic book, as a "noise"
brought about by association of various impressions that
are evoked by the given texture of an object. Old pictures,
eg. ikons, evoke by their peculiertexture a relevant "noise"
44 Jozef Szanajca , Project for a crematory and mauso-
leum , 1926
in us, different from the noises caused, e.g., by impressio-
nist paintings. This author ascribes a great significance
to texture , extending its functions upon everything that
surrounds us, the organic and inorganic world.
Defining the essence of texture, Markov as well as other
theorists start from a purely material assumption, i.e. they
base it on a cult of the material itself. Investigating texture
from this angle, French and in particular Russian painters
have made a lot of interesting experiments . A worship of
material , the scrutinizing of its properties in a laboratory,
has been brought to its peak in Russia (Tatlin, Rod-
schenko). From all these researches an absolute emanci-
pation of texture from the oppression of the other painterly
factors has resulted and it has been given an indepen-
dent significance.
To enhance the working of texture, resort has been made
to materials that not previously belonged to the store of
the means used by painters, such as newspaper clippings,
cork , glass , sand, metal, etc. Those materials, arranged
beside each other on a picture in a certain rhythmical
relationship planned beforehand, have been forming un-
usually varied texture patterns, almost shocking a behol-
der accustomed to the gentle and smooth surfaces in
painting.
Juxtaposing materials so varied as to their nature, with
their different textural properties and diferent dimensiona-
lity, must have obviously modified the flat character of a
picture, transforming it into a bas-relief that can be pro-
perly appreciated not only by sight, but also by touch.
Their use has indeed greatly enhanced the emotionality
of texture (stronger contrasts), but at the same time it has
transformed painting itself into some new genre, a "Skulp-
turmalerei" (Archipenko).
Though owing to texture, painting has come closer to its
original element, it has also lost one of its specific cha-
racteristics, viz. its two-dimensionality .
Starting from the two-dimensional (flat) assumption in
painting, all the three-dimensional hints (perspective) and
actual protrusions must be considered as improper and
violating the nature of painting . But on the other hand, we
cannot give up again those enormous values of texture
that have been attained in recent years by hard experi-
mental labour . Now, how shall we reconcile one with the
other?
Carefully analzing the textural working of several mate-
rials (sand, glass, newspaper , wood), I have found out
that their working is not direct, i.e. those materials affect
us not as such, but as metaphors of various textural com-
binations. A printed newspaper, as such, has some mean-
ing for us: we can read it; but as an element in a texture
it looses such utilitarian meaning absolutely, and it is
transformed into a peculiar typographical rhythm, com-
pletely cut away from the contents brought by the printed
letters. Similarly, glass as a texture is transformed into
a hue that, because of its smoothness and polish, has the
higest potentiality of contrast; sand becomes a grainy,
pulverized, trembling timbre; wood is a proper wooden
ornament, etc . I could quote many more similar examp-
les of textural transformations of objects.
Thus, in their textural function, these materials loose their
essential significance, or in other words, they are dema-
terialized. So it is not materials in themselves which are
significant, but their equivalents . In consequence, if we
invent suitable equivalents for the several materials, se-
parately for glass, sand, wood, newspaper etc., we shall
also be able to get the result of the working of textures,
identical with the working of the texture of a material
itself.
Relying consequently on this principle of equivalency of
materials and developing it further, we shall create a
wholly new and autonomous texture, independent on ma-
terials and corresponding to the nature of two-dimensional
painting.
Apart from the faults of the texture of materials with res-
pect to its incompatibility with the 2-dimensional proper-
ties of painting, also its anachronic character with respect
to contemporary assumptions of the plastic arts must be
stressed.
The texture of materials , with its enormous range of
means, for there can be infinitely many materials, has com-
pelled a painter to a continuous fumbling with the se-
crets hidden in every material, stimulating him to produce
the most refined textural combinations and sophisticating
his textural sensibility to the degree of perversity.
The texture of materials has been a susceptible soil to all
kinds of individualism , subjectivism and morbid aesthetic
refinement. Against the requirements of time: instead of
simplicity and economy of means - too much complexity;
instead of clarity - embroilment.
But I repeat, the results of the outright mythical cult of
materials , expressed in already uncountable experiments,
are enormous and they should by no means be denied.
73
 I
What is at stake, is rather that the results already attained
were appropriately employed and transformed for the new
purposes. At this point industrial technology turns out to
be our ally. I'll try to explain what I mean.
Taking the principle of equivalency of materials as the
starting point to the new textural system, it must be stated
that the finding out of textural equivalents for the several
materials would alone reduce painting to the role of an
imitator - if not of objects, then at any rate of their tex-
tures. Painting would be turned into some new kind of
objectless impressionism, or into a kind of illusionism.
Besides, a fresh start would be given to an even greater
enhancement of subjectivism and chaos - and that be-
cause of the huge mass of materials present around us
and not yet ordered in any manner with respect to their
texture . It would be a toilsome and complex work without
any real advantages, except perhaps an even greater
anarchy and confusion in the field of plastic creation -
which of course does not belong to the demands of con-
temporary art. And thus, such equivalents should be pro-
duced, that would not be socalled mere photographs
of textures of individual materials or objects, but that would
contain in themselves a synthesis of all the textural va-
lues, chaotically scattered among all the objects in the
world around us, in the whole universe.
To carry out the work of bringing together the textural
values in a synthetic order, to call forth a disciplined tex-
tural system, we must resort to the method of schemati-
zation. A scheme as the only rational means of simplify-
ing all entanglements, allowing to attain the end with the
greatest possible economy of means, is what can help us
in this case.
But then, the technical means of painting must be read-
justed - applied to the tasks of the scheme. The old tech-
nique of painting, still lingering, with all its features of
skillful virtuosity, accidentality, dependence on transient
moods and whims of a painter, has been quite well fitted
to the ends of the impressionistic and naturalistic, indivi-
dualistic and subjectivist art of yesterday. However, the
old technique is no longer appropriate for the principles
of art of today which can be summarized as follows: a
· breaking with all imitation of objects (even if it is the most
free), autonomy of forms, discipline in the broadest sense
of the word, clarity permitting everyone to grasp the ar-
tist's intention, schematism, geometry, precision that facili-
tates everyone the ordering of his impressions obtained
74
from the given work . The technique of craftsmen is even
more helpless when it comes to a creation of a new
schematic textural system. And in that case, it is only the
mechanistic technology, modelled after the industrial me-
thods as independent from individual whims and based
upon a strict and precise functioning of a machine, that
can give us a hand. Thus, the painting of today, the art of
today, should be based upon the principles of machine
production.
A totally new creative system will be produced by me-
chanizing texture and the means of painterly expression.
This concerns not only painting, but all creative effort
altogether.
It does not at all mean an automatization of the creative
process itself. On the contrary, by mechanization of the
means we shall attain an even greater freedom of creat-
ing, a greater inventive opportunity.
The old system of the craft in painting, with all its load of
naturalistic and academic prescriptions, has been nothing
but an impediment for the freedom of invention . It was
an artist's nightmare. It has been stealing the bulk of his
creative energy, wasting it for trifling things without any
weight , for morbidly refined virtuosity.
Art of today is a product of the present day. It must break
with all the habits of art of yesterday, perfumed and per-
versed , oversensitive, hysterical, romantic, boudoir, indi-
vidualistic. It ought to offer a new language of forms,
accessible to all, that would not fall in collision with the
rhythm of our present day.
45 Bohdan Lachert and Jozef Szanajca, 1936
46 Bohdan Lachert and Jozef Szanajca, Housing project
for labourers, 1927
"We do away .. ."
("Likwidujemy ostatecznie . . .") Blok 1924, No 1 (March)
The text was printed on the front page of the first issue
of the journal "Blok " and it was the only one repeated in
a French version . It was not signed; being a kind of a
manifesto, it was apparently approved by all the members
of the group, though its final version was edited by Szczuka .
The present translation is from the Polish text; the charac-
teristic arrangement into paragraphs limited to single sen-
tences has been retained.
We do away ...
We do away for good and all with the expressing of per-
sonal moods, with the mannerism of expos ing oneself,
that still persists in Modernist art.
Not individual attempts of an artist should be witnessed
by art - but it ought to be a work of a collective effort,
with an individual artist acting as a worker and inventor.
What any artist creates, must be a superstructure over
the sum of the efforts of his predecessors and comrades.
Discrepant individualistic experiments must be substituted
by the absolute discipline and continuity of work based
on canons.
Instead of inspiration, instead of aesthetic contemplation -
a conscious, shaping will , demanding clarity and precision
of forms.
The contemporary demands of life set the problem of
economy on the foreground.
The principle of economy entails a great simplification of
means; for that reason, the manual labor of an artist is re-
duced to the minimum by mechanizing it.
Hand-made forms contain graphological biases, charac-
teristic for individual artists; a mechanical performance
offers an absolute objectivism of form.
The method of mechanization is in a direct contact with
technology .
In technology , utilitarian considerations yield results that
are similar to aesthetic ones.
We are facing the problem of aesthetics of maximum
economy.
'j,.
Wfadysfaw Strzeminski, "What Is Legitimately Called
New Art ... "
(" To co si~ prawnie nazywa Nowc1 Sztukc1... " ) Blok 1924,
No 2 (April).
Strzeminski 's statement is here reproduced unabridged,
but its graphical arrangement has not been retained. It is
a sort of a counterbalance against the productivist slogans
announced by Szczuka in the same issue .
Wtadystaw Strzeminski
What Is Legitimately Called New Art ... "
1. What is legitimately called New Art, pursues the per-
fection of the plastic form .
2. To analyse the domain of the plastic arts we cannot
use the universal method of research, blurring the differ -
ence that exists between this and the other domains.
3. The perfection of a work of art must be its content
- rather than a blueprint and a narrative about another
content, experienced elsewhere and then finding its ves-
tige and imitation in the form of a work of art.
Nota bene :
Also, a work of art should not be a narrative about the con-
tent of the present day. Let its actuality be measured by
the standard of its perfection, possible to be attained only
today.
4. Classic art has achieved a certain level of perfection .
Its further development has been impeded by: literary
exploits ; the principle of symmet ry ; the so-called " noble
sinuosity " of shapes .
5. A work of art must be built according to laws which
are its own. It can have no model , neither in the exacti-
tude of photography , nor in the samples of industrial pro-
ducts, nor in any other thing whatsoever .
6. A work of plastic art does not express itself. A work of
art is not a sign of anything . It is (exists) all by itself.
7. A work of art is the Organicity of a spatial phenomenon.
8. Dynamism is spat io-temporal action, and thus it does
not belong to the plastic arts.
9. The present day has surpassed the directions of the
so-called new art : cubism , futurism , suprematism , ground-
ed on the dynamic element.
75
 10. Cubism, starting from a uniform system of contrasts,
invented and introduced the difference in texturing and
the difference of shapes.
11. Formerly, the organicity of a work of art used to be
pursued by imitating the organic shapes of nature or by
imitating the hiero-mathematics of Pythagoras (in orna-
mental works - the principle of symmetry, the triangle of
Leonardo da Vinci, the diagonal of Tintoretto). This could
not be done . The laws of art cannot be reduced to the
laws of nature. Either the logic of art, or the logic of
things. Also the creatively impotent schemes of Pythago-
ras, violently pressed into art rather then inherent in it,
have fallen bankrupt ever since the time of Raphael's
frescoes . It is since that date that the agony of the prin-
ciples of symmetry has begun.
12. Deriving a work of art from the image of contemporary
technology, an artist is a little closer to his objective, for
both one and the other is a product of human hands. But
here the old literary and naturalistic superstition is still
lingering ("a picture tells a story ", "a picture expresses",
" a picture reproduces"), whereas it neither tells , nor ex-
presses or reproduces anything; it simply is, exists. The
difference in the aims, and thus in the system of construc-
tion, has been blurred. A machine is an organic whole,
and its aim is the perfection of its output. As a whole, it
can be beautiful, though it does not attempt it. A work of
art is a visual organic whole and as a whole it can be
beautiful, though it does not attempt to be it.

47 Bohdan Lachert, Interior of a house in Warsaw (Sas-

ka KE1pa),photomontage, 1928

48 Bohdan Lachert and Jozef Szanajca, Design and con-

struction of a house, Warsaw (Saska KE1pa),photomontage,
1928

76
 •••
• • •
• • • • •
~• . -
• ••
••
•• •
••
•
•• ••••
••
••
••
•

••

Henryk Berlewi , Mechano-Faktur , 1923


"What is Constructivism?"
(" Co to jest konstruktywizm", Blok 1924, No 6-7
(September).
The essence of this statement was reprinted by Szczuka
a year later in a paper " What Does Blok Want?" ("Czego
chce Blok " ; Reflektor 1925, No 2) and called a programme
of the group. The text in " Blok" was signed as an edito-
rial , and by that time only Szczuka and Zarnower belong-
ed to the editorial board. Szczuka informed that the first
(unpublished) draft of the programme had been elabora-
ted even before the emergence of the "Blok" group, i.e .,
in 1923.
What is Constructivism?
NOT any particular portion of art (e.g ., a picture or poems)
but art as a whole
NOT expressing one 's personal experiences and moods,
but looking for a PRACTICAL application for the creative
drive, flowing from the original instinct of art, displayed
in every product of human labour
BUILDING of things by all available means, with the prac-
tical purpose of those things as the primary considera-
tion
It does not mean that t he constructivist programme can-
cels disinterested creation in art
A SYSTEM of methodical collective work, controlled by a
self-conscious will , aiming at the perfection of the results
of the collectively attained results of work; and also in-
ventiveness
MECHANIZATION of the means of work
Hand -made forms contain graphological biases, charac-
teristic for individual artists; a mechanical performance
offers an absolute objectivism of form (Blok, No 1).
ECONOMIC use of material
Exactly as much material as is indispensable
The properties of the created thing must DEPEND upon
the employed material
Constructional merits of the mater ial - the types of its
surface - its colour - its different surface properties as
dependent on the finish - its peculiarities when exposed
to light etc.
T. van Doesburg said about colour as the property of
building materials :
78
Mieczystaw Szczuka, typographical design for his own text
" Co to jest konstruktywizm " , (What is constructivism?) ,
BLOK , No 6-7, p. 3
" New architecture uses colour (not painting), throws it
into light, d isplays with it the changes of shape and space.
Without colour we would have no play of shapes.
It is only by means of colour that we can attain a clear,
optical balance and equilibrated integration of the parti-
cular parts in the new architectural style.
To harmonize the whole (in the sense of space and time,
and not in the two dimensions) by colour - this is the
task for a painter.
In the subsequent stage of development , it will be possible
to substitute a transformed material for colour (the task
of chemistry) ...
Colour (it must be made clear to architects - enemies of
colour) is not an ornament or embellishment - it is an
essential element, organically belonging to architecture
like glass and iron " .
("A Renewal of Architecture", Blok No 5).
BUILDING of a thing according with its own principles 8
1 Constructivism does not imitate the machine , but it finds
its equivalent in the machine 's simplicity and logic 9
The problem of CONSTRUCTION, rather than the problem
of form 10
2 Construction determines the form.
Form has its origin in construction.
Application of the achievements of technology to expand
3 the range of opportunities 11
To focus the creative effort in the first place upon archi-
tecture - cinema - printing and the so called world of
fashions 12
The problems of health and convenience have been often
held back by architects for aesthetic reasons - a construc-
4 tivist constructor takes them up as the problems of pri-
5 mary importance .
To introduce art into life as a factor contributing to the
general development and in its turn dependent upon the
changes occuring in the other fields of human creative
6 activity, mainly on technology 13
THE PROBLEMS OF ART AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS
ARE INDIVISIBLE
7 Constructivism does not aim at creating a style as an
unchanging fixed pattern based upon forms once invent -
ed and accepted, but it takes up the problem of CON-
STRUCTION that may and must be subject to continuous
changes and improvements, under the influence of the
ever new and more complex requirements imposed by
the general development. The Editors
CO TO .JEST KONSTRUKTYWIZM.
••£ poszczegolny odlam sztukl (np. obraz lub wlersz), lecz sztuka
Jako o•lotll · · • I
;:0 ns \, ;:u" t ,, w : =.m n 1 a 1 Elz :/ do S t-.VO.'.'Z8!11 a

•E wypowladanle swych osoblstych przdyt I nastrojow, lecz

szukanle PRAKTYCZNEGO zaatosowanla dla popi:du tw6rczego

w katdym
wyplywaj~cego
wytworze
z p1erwo1nego
pracy ludzldej.
in•tynklu sztuki, kt6ry przejawia ••
si~

stylu, jako n1 ezm ien nego szablonu,

BUDDWANIE rzeczy z pomoc11wszelklch rozporz11dzalnych ir0d-
k6w, stawlaJ11c na plerwazym planle proktyoz•11 celowotc
. tej rzeczy ' • a
Nie znaczy to, 1eby progra'!l konstruktywizmu przekrdlal I bez-
intert>t!i(u,··n4 tw Orc.toS C w sztuce.

SYSTEM metodyoznej kolektywnej pracy, ttgulowaneJ

przez swladom11sleble wolt~.maj4cy na celu udoakonolonle wynl- 0
p 8 r"t e g 0 na raz wynal ez1 ony ch
kow zblorowo osl11gnl4:tegodorobku pracy I wynolazozoill • 4
MECHANIZACJA ~rodkow pracy o I
Formy wykonane r~cznie daj:i grafologiczne odchylenia charaktery•
5tyczne dla poszczeg6lnych artyst6w - wykonanie mechaniczne daje bez-
wzgledny objek1ywizm formy (Blok•Nr. I).

EKONOMICZNE utycle materJatu

Sc,sle tyle tylko materjah,, ile go koniecznit potrzeba.
•• 1 przyj~tych formach 1e c z p o d e j muj e
UZALEZNIEIIIE charakteru tworz~neJ . rzeczy 0d utytego ma-
terjalu • 7
!so nstrukcyjne warto~ci moierjalu ...,. charakter wyst~powania po•
,,·11.;·rz
r hni materjaJu - barwa materjalu - odmienno§ci cech powierzchni
mateqallt \v zalctnrnfoi od obrobienia - swoiste wtasnoSCi materjatu w re-
ak q i na 1hviatto etc .
U barwit·, jMko wlasn oki ach maferjatu w zastosowaniu do budownictwa zagadnienie BUDOWY, kto ra moze
mowi T. w. Doeaburg,
.,.,·ou·a archilektura posluguje sit; barwq (nie malarslwem), rzuca /q
»' ~·•·iallo, akazuje w niej prz emianr ksztal/11 i przestrzeni. Bez harv,y nie
otrzrmalibrsmr grr ksztalto ...
Jedrnic za pomocq barwr moiemr osiqgnqc wrra:tnq, optycznq rowno•
,nigf i rou•nou·artosciowe scolkowanie poszczegol11ych CZf5Ci w nowym slylu
11rchilektonirznrm. ·
Har• q zharmonizou·ac calosc \1v znaczeniu przeslrzeni I czasu, a nie
dwu-11T1111aron-osciJ ~ o:o zadanie malarza .
musi ul egeo p rze miano m
,. Ir da/szem stadjum roz•·r,ju baru•o ta do sit; zostqpic przez prze•
l•·orz onr malerjal (zadanie chemji)...
Bmu•o /mcrl.aj zroz11miejq to archilekci - przeciwnicy borwy) nie jest
oztloh q, zdobnit·t•·em - M tr-•iol, podobnie jok szklo i zelazo, organicznie
z archilt ·kturq zroSnirJr" .
:(,.OdnOM•ienie
archilektury " Blok Nr. 5).
BUDOWANIE rzeczy wedlug jej wtaanych zasad • 8 i doskona l eniom pod
h:on.:-.trul t} w i.tm nic na~laduje maszyny Jeez znajduje sw6j r6wno-
wp?:y we ;r. cora z
w..izn1L..w pro:.itcie i log1cc maszyny.

DYSCYPLIIA tadu i porz11dku

Zagadnlenle BUDOWY a nie zagadnlenle formy
••
• 10
Bu:1o wa dt.>cyduje o formic.
1-ttrrna wyplywa z budowy.
Zu:.t.ycie zdobyczy technikl dla rozszerzenla
zakresu mo.tll•
to n owyc h i c o raz b ardziej
woscl • 11
Sklerowanle wysllku tworcugo w plerwszym rzt:dzle mi bu•
downictwo - kino - drukarstwo It. zw. 6wiat mody
• 12
.\ rd 1itekc:i ze w zgl~d6 w u1ctycznych cz~s1okrof pomijali zagadnie-
nia h,~,en y i W)!(Ody budo wniczy konstruluyw1zmu podejmuje je jako
p r ottle m y pierw,, orz( d ne . S k OmP 1 1 k O W an YCh w YmOg 6 w Jakie
Wprowadzenle sztukl w tycle na zasadach czynnlka ••Pol•
dzl.,•J11c•g• w ogolnym rozwoJu I wspolzal•*n•go od
zmlan zachOdz~cych w lnnych dzledzlnach tworczoscl ludzkleJ
pr,<'dew•l)atllem od techmki O IS
•IEIIOZDZIELNO•t ZAGADNIE. SZTUIU I ZA8ADNIE.
•OLECZ•YCN · • I.& narzuca o gOl ny roz,::OJ.
RED•.

79
 B , Sn.,kal15~a i $, Brukalakl
r.-a gmen i w1,~ n.a ;;;k!epu r.r,n,v
Jr,n F rutik~ ki w \Var n::, wi¢
P.twikm '"' \V ~·~;,.wfo
Sanit.i.rno.J l,,-s,i<'nj<.»<n
d
w \V ;ir~iaw ie
Wladyslaw Strzeminski
"B = 2; to read ... "
("B = 2, powinno bye .. .") Blok 1924, No 8-9
(November-December).
The paper was the last statement published by the artist in
"Blok " . At the same time, it was the first more extensive
exposition of his theory that would come to be known as
the theory of unism. In the translation we retain the basic
pattern of type sizes and the graphic arrangement.
Wladys/aw Strzeminski
B =c 2
To read :
Art = maximum creation
The academic law of abiding by the norms established by
all the late authorities and respectables, the law of obe-
dient and passive immobility, the conservative and static
law (and thus a dead one) must be substituted by the
command of
absolute creation.
Uncreative work, not going away from what has been -
is not a work of art, even if all the prescriptions of the
masters that are dead (and respected by society because
they are dead) had been carried out.
II
creation + system
The car factory of Ford: each worker performs only one
sort of movement (differentiation of labour): each car is
gradually constructed by several thousands of workers,
and each of them carries out a single function, most simple
and strictly determined. Each worker does his part of
work at the car during one minute (mechanization of la-
bour). The machine transporting the car in production
from one worker to the next , moves automatically every
minute. In this way , every minute the factory turns out a
car, formerly driven between thousands of hands. Due to
a good organization, economy of movements resulting
80
from the most strict division, simplification and mechani-
zation of labour - the rate of performance is the greatest
possible. The task of the engineers controlling the sec-
tions of the flow of work is to be inventive, to simplify the
movements of each individual worker: to substitute a few
motions by one (by an appropriate change = improve-
ment of machines). The result : a continuous creative
effort. Creation can be supported on a preexisting system,
but for that reason it is continuously directed towards
modification ( = improvement)
Ill
The Sunset of Europe
The cultural period , the end of which we are now observ-
ing (the Renaissance - Danton and the others), is a de-
velopment of humanism. It has created a culture that is
individualistic - consumptive - sentimental - freedom-
haunted - destructive. An organizational culture is com-
ing: the construction of productivity: the micrometric
process of the productive organization of labour.
The artistic individualism of art during the humanistic
epoch did not know how to work: it started everything
from A. In consequence, its result and its end was the
beginning.
He is the winner in art who steadily attempts to develop
a system , who aims at objective perfection: he tests
and improves the system again and again. Such an effort
is beyond an individual's capacity; it requires collective
endeavours. And thus: to undertake the work of one's
predecessors ; to investigate the assumptions; to mend
up the system and to continue - this is the way of creat-
ing true cultural values. Contemporary creation has to
arise on the basis of previous efforts, but its beginn-
ing must be, where everything already done ends. Tradi-
tion is the raw material that must be used for construction,
which means that it must be transformed into what it has
never been. The further we go, the more faithful we are
to tradition .
IV
The direction of development of the plastic arts in the
2nd half of the 19th and in the 20th century can be sum-
marized :
to create a work
of art as an organic plastic entity. This is the net result of
particular tendencies.
 49 Barbara and Stanislaw Brukalski , Architectural pro-

..a.r." I ........ ,
jects, Warsaw 1927

50 Barbara and Stanislaw Brukalski, detail of a private

house, Warsaw 1930

51 Announcement of the group a. r., 1930 , No 1, p. 1

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V VII

jby no other art: indeed, by no
~ther means can be expressed
PLASTIC
FEELING hat is felt in the plastic arts only
nd nowhere else (the next di-
It should not be an unfinished unity, or contain anything
beyond such unity. The plastic action must be located
within the limits of a work of art, i.e.
1) the whole plastic action is contained within the
given work of art;
2) only one action is present, rather than 2 or more.

IT
sion: painting, sculpture and
the rs) · Thus all the non-constructional or chaotic works are
banned out from the frontiers of art.

we can apprehend it by a number of comparisons:

VIII
the feeling of painting <-> the literary feeling A unity of assumption: a uniform system of selection and
" " a" painting
" <-> the musical feeling connection of all parts.
<-> a natural object
a sculpture <= > a mystical treatise IX
The worn out phrase announcing the " deconstruction of
Such oppositions will facilitate the elimination of alien
impressionism" marks the lack of culture and the small
elements and the definition of the concept of plastic
plastic mind of the speakers . What is the aim of construc-
feeling.
tion? - To attain unity. In cubism, the unity was attained
The common trail of contemporary art leads to one end :
by an equilibrium of the collision of forms. In futurism,
a plastic organism. So we are pursuing the highest con-
the same dynamic tension was spread throughout the
centration: the plastic feeling elevated to the rank of self-
whole picture. Impressionism connects the chaos of the
sufficiency. The naturalists started along this way by estab-
graphic and spatial forms by identical tension of co-
lishing the principle of visual self-sufficiency and by making
lo~r. I think that this way: indifference towards the gra-
the plastic arts independent from literary influences (visio-
phic and sculptural elements and pushing the element
nary sentimentalism), but they are wrong when they speak
of colour to the foreground - is no less good in painting.
about identity in the sphere of objects.

VI X
A form of existence produces a form of consciousness. (a Gypsy stole a horse and re-
An appearance of a new form creates a new content. painted it to avoid recognition)
Therefore,
form The way of French cubism : to perfect the form and at
is value the same time to conceal an object in it. At the first glance,
a perfect form is seen, but when the eye perceives the ob-
Content does not produce form; it cannot turn out a
ject, the attraction of form perishes: what remains, is
un(form system. To cover imitation, a different literary and
very skillful acrobatics and the search for hiding places.
obJect content is introduced , but since the form remains
And to follow tracks is a hunter's job.
the same, then also the plastic feeling determined by the
The expressionistic "Murders in the Rue Morgue"-->
system of apprehension and arrangement of forms re-
committed on form in the cubo-futuristic sense , a powerful
mains unchanged. The efforts are vain and such a work
thrill (perhaps no less than in detective stories) ; but would
of art fails to contain anything creative or new. It is a
it not be better to write a detective story , permitting to
failure .
describe more precisely the moods and events before
TOTALITY AND UNITY OF A WORK OF ART and after the murder .

81
 .... ......____
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"
52 Announcement of the group a. r., 1930, No 1, p. 2
...... ••• 0 11111 ..... Alllll:I W lei CMlrf
C'OZCfl:'9tatd, ............ I Um.Gt bCD ......

I Jmdlla IH., __ lla ..

........,llcjlwclnlglel,
nblkl., ra•ln•Nti _ I 53 In the Galerie Zak: Michel Seuphor, Henry Stazewski,
,,'J"D" ~
, .... .» llUl)WE •nv11~
dnla ddsl J ...... ctaalS I~- Jan Brz~kowski, Piet Mondrian, Stanistaw Grabowski,
1,!A21ofA0..(:Hiw1tZ1.0bCI .
l~I/IU,OQWAHIA,0(0N(:Ulfll1'· ..ti. r. Paris, 1930
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In both cases, alien elements are absorbed into plas-
tic art: external objects, literary motives, psychologism.
A work of art contains
in itself a plastic feeling
(as a result of the working of forms)+ non-plastic feel-
ings: the totality and unity of the work are blown up from
within (2 simultaneous principles).
It is time for the plastic art to resort to its own means.
A real autonomous existence in the plastic arts: when a
work of art is plastically self-sufficient; when it constitutes
an end for itself and does not seek for justification in va-
lues that subsist beyond the picture.
An item of pure art, built in accordance with the prin-
ciples of its own, stands up beside the other worldly
organisms as a parallel entity, as a real being, for every
thing has its own laws of construction of its body. When
we build, we cannot do it according with the laws and
principles of another thing.
The law of painterly organicity requires: the greatest
possible union of forms with the plane of the picture.
1) a union in a direction perpendicular to the plane
of the picture, i.e. the flatness of forms: a picture as a
plane.
2) a union within the plane of the picture itself:
a form ought to grow out from the picture, be directly
connected with it: if a form flutters and tends to fall out;
if it does not grow from, but is as fastened to the plane of
the picture, against its nature, wishes and intentions, then
we know that the picture is one thing and the form is
another.
3) The whole picture as a single integral plane
works at the same time. Forms should not be active by
themselves, independent from the whole picture, for then
we have got a portrait of an organic whole of forms, but
no unity of forms with the background.
It is commonly known that suprematism is one of the
directions of nonobjective painting.
Almost all know that a suprematist picture consists of flat
geometrical forms painted on a background which is
white.
Those who have some plastic culture know that suprema-
tism bestows its forms with the capacity for autonomous
existence, independent from other forms; and that it esta-
blishes a system of cooperation of forms as a substitute
-->
for the cubistic opposition.
Very few know that the principle of suprematism is the law
of economy and of the greatest development of dynamism.
It was for the sake of dynamism that every form was led
up to its sharpest consequences. The working of the whole
picture is what replaces the greatest force of the dyna-
XI mism of forms, whatever the picture.
The last effort of suprematism was: to reconcile dynamism
with the organicity of a picture.
Since: if the task is to give the forms a dynamic expres-
sion, the colours are unnecessary and their origin is
groundless aestheticism; - then: the next to last period
in suprematism was black suprematism on a white back-
ground.
But:
The effect of dynamism -
the consequent elimination
of colours - can be led up
to a single colour
The contradiction of the
background and the he-
terogeneity of the picture
V V
compels to take the last step - to the white suprematism
(white forms against a white background: the visual diffe-
rence caused by the difference in surface).
An exercise : straight lined geometrical shapes, essentially
XII conspicuous in the picture - should be connected by
means of colour. The same colour tension for the forms
and background. An exercise in colourism!
XIII
Formerly (Renaissance, Baroque), all the forms in a pic-
ture were fudged up into a triangle, square or circle and
placed in the center of a picture. Such a figure gave an

82
appearance of construction . The construction did not xv
grow out from the picture, but it was fastened to it in a
Every form must be adjusted
manner incompatible with its essence. This was called
a) to the limits of the picture
geometrism of structure.
- by its shape
The cubists introduced the vertical or the diagonal as the
b) to the background of the picture
basis of construction. The forms that piled up had to be
- by its shape and colour.
adjusted to the picture, but their rythm was dependent on
We perceive, how strange and discordant an impression is
the direction of the structure. A picture required more
made by a non-simple form next to the edge of a straight-
creativity and offered more cohesion than had formerly
lined picture, or a straight-lined form next to the edge of a
been possible.
round picture.
But an axis of construction is also an accidental pheno-
menon pulled from outside.
A further step, made by Malevich (suprematism): - a form
existing all by itself, growing out from the picture towards
the onlooker (the forms of cubism and futurism used to
grow towards the canvas; they were gliding and for that
reason they were not sufficiently united with the picture).
So it was in the first and most simple suprematist paint- A certain straightness of forms is the result of the straight-
ings. But as the dynamic tendencies developed, forms be-
gan to glide on the canvas. ness o f th e Ii m its h - th e pie
. t ure mus t agree wit. h ·tI s
stretc er
limits, introduced into them (Fig. II).
XIV
We are facing the challenge of balancing these two
SHAPES AS NATURAL AS NATURE - said Malevich about
factors.
the deepest assumption of suprematism. Universal cosmic
shapes as the sign and shape of universal cosmic dy-
The task which is solved by means of colour only PYwhite
namism .
suprematism, ought to be solved by both colour and form.
The fault of suprematism was that attempting to discover
We are no longer impressionists!
the laws of cosmic organicity, it overlooked the fact that
it was creating its own shape in dependence on the en-
XVI
vironment which it wanted to overcome.
Suprematism did not define the concept of a shape in The use of proper means also implies the elimination of
painting; its basic shapes result from the categories of time.
spatial (not plastic) thinking, and thus they are the same (time is a non-plastic element,
that exist in the science of spatial cognition, i. e. in geo- characteristic for other arts: lite-
metry, rather than in the science of painterly endeavour. rature, music)
The fault of suprematism was that it applied a universal
method of research to the analysis of the field of the plas- Not the action of one form towards another, but a COM·
tic arts and in this manner it blurred the difference between PLETE SIMULTANEITY OF THE PHENOMENON.
art and technology , art and astronomy, art and the hiero-
mathematics of Pythagoras. Examples:
It is impossible and vain to speak about shapes in gene- 1) mutual influence of forms (clashes tl]at make for
ral: each shape becomes adjusted to an end. And thus: the balance) - in cubism. Looking at a cubistic picture,
1) What are the tasks of a plastic shape? we must decipher what every form does to the others
2) How should it be shaped to be as natural as (predominant movements, weaker movements, hampered
nature? movements, almost nonexistent movements, static points)

83
 movement = space x time
and at last becom ing aware of the emergent system of
equ ilibrium.
The basic feature of cubism is not only its multiple dy-
namism of forms (dynamism = form x space x time), but
also - t he time it takes to feel and decipher cubistic ex-
pressions contained in a given cubistic work. The under-
lying cause is that the notion of time (as the period of
incubation of a picture) has been included into the pro-
gramme of a picture . Similarly as with the reading of a
book . The concept of an activ ity is related to the concept
of time .
2) Futurism assumes as its objective: to embody a
certain length of time (a few moments of an object's mo-
tion) in the given work, by opposing one moment of mo-
tion against all the others (this princ iple is natura listic and
object-directed, rather than plast ic) .
Cubo-futurist ic interactions of forms, even if only potential,
entail the notion of a certain span of time which is neces-
sary for their completion, and thus they are not a plastic
phenomenon :
for t ime is remarkable for other branches of art.
XVII
The position of suprematism is different: an attempt at a
compromise between dynamism and pure painting based
upon the painterly feeling:
there is a number of autonomous forms , connected by a
common dynamic action .
Every form has its proper place and thereby it stands on
the canvas on its own strength (in cubism - because it
leans against other ones) .
Autonomous existence of form
growing out from the picture and connected with it
as tightly as possible
it can only be reconciled with
dynamism , which has drive and a
change of places as its essence,
under the sole condition of reducing the period of time
to O (a single moment in motion: a concept from me-
chanics)
i.e ., the form is established in conditions of the most tight
84
fusion with the picture : dynamism exists potentially, by
indicating the direction of motion.
Here lies the contradiction: the compromise:
- either the form will merge completely with
the picture and it will take from it its static
existence -
- or else, it w ill fall out from the picture and
then, the whole picture is no good, for there
is only a dynamic form that is left.
the concept of statics as huge , strongly loaded
weights that cannot be moved - I consider as no
less dynamic: a dynamism of the force of pressure
of a weight , and the strength of resistance is easy
to discover .
Malevich, better than anyone , felt the impossibility of a
plastic dynamism , the fallacy of the principle itself, but he
did not renounce it ; he was too deeply stuck in the futurist
superstitions. Therefore he created the most plastic form
of dynamism.
A line - the power of the futurists, is in its continuation
thrust away from a picture . A surface : the form of the
greatest cohesion with a picture. This entails the selec-
tion of raw material in suprematism. And the effects of
dynamism are: too many slanting directions and the giv-
ing up of the idea of a picture as an organic unit closed
in itself.
In as much as dynamism is an objective, painting is a sub-
ordinate thing (a means).
Since dynamism is not a purely painterly element, for time
is its constituent part, therefore its ultimate result is a
renouncement of painting for non-painterly purposes.
XVIII
A picture should not be an interaction of forms, but a si-
multaneous phenomenon.
The basic law of absolute painting is
a rejection of dynamism
- the deepest essence of the former period (the cubo-
futuristic one).
Avoiding of the interaction of forms, so called
mutual neutrality of forms.
Not the associative and material colour of the cubists and
classics; not the emotional hue of the impressionists; not
colour as a sign of suprematist energy - but colour in its
direct essence .
54 In the apartment of Celine Arnauld and Paul Dermee :
Michel Seuphor , Piet Mondrian, Georges Vantongerloo ,
Aleksander Rafatowski, Henryk Stazewski , Paris, 1930

Henryk Stazewski, "On Abstract Art"

(0 sztuce abstrakcyjnej) Blok 1924, No 8-9 (November-

December)

The whole statement is reproduced, with its division into

paragraphs. It is essentially conforming with the construc-
tivist attitude of the periodical and it shows various links
with Mondrian's programme of neoplasticism , being an
interesting example of the reception of its principles in
Poland.

Henryk Stazewski
On Abstract Art

Abstraction is the result of a thorough inquiry .

Abstract art is not something severed from the outer world
around us ; however, it is no longer descriptive , but it uses
pure plastic means. It is a plastic equivalent of nature .
The less there is of presentation , the closer we are to a
pure plastic art.
Abstraction does not make the new plastic art merely
decorative, as its purpose is a picture, subject to its own
strict laws.
The new spirit reveals more and more laws that rule the
universe; it creates a new reality.
To show the essence of being , which has been the pur-
pose of naturalism , is beyond reach. The only purpose of
the new , abstract plastic art is to express the laws that
rule all things and our existence . Such art is practicable ,
and it is marked by a human element.
The new art , endeavouring to grasp the proper meaning
of things, discovers new principles of vision, like the dis-
tortion of an object by the invading environment (the
cubistic dynamism) . Nonobjective art yields more to the
laws of the picture : the flat and square canvas exerts in-
fluence upon forms put on it. Individual potentialit ies are
inimical to the pure plastic expression .
Individualism unsettles the balance between man and
universe .

85
 WLADYSLAW
STRZEMINSK I Praesens Library , Warsaw, No 3 (1928)
UNIZM
((
~
((
N
W MALARSTW IE a)
a:
((
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in
z
Ill
a,
Ill
((
a:
G;
•
le
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Ill
..,
0
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m
m
Wfadysfaw Strzemiriski, "Unism in Painting"
(" Unizm w malarstwie " ), Warsaw 1928.
The book was published as the third volume of the
" Praesens Library ", in an interesting typographical ar-
rangement by Henryk Stazewski. It contained , beside its
16 pages of text, an insert with reproductions and sche-
matic drawings discussed by the author . The exposition
of the theory of unism had been published by Strzeminski
for the first time under a different title : " Dualism and
Unism ", in No 6-7 of a magazine DROGA (June-July,
1927). Both texts are essentially identical , apart from co r-
rect ions in the spelling of names and the substitut ion of
graphic elements in the book for the numbers of para-
graphs from the earlier edition . "Unism in Painting " is the
fullest and most systematic exposition of Strzeminski 's own
theory of art , and of painting in particular. A historical
analysis of the Baroque form , made in terms of Wolfflin 's
conceptua l framework , has become a start ing point to
define the general idea of unism : the principle of a full
uniformity of a picture . Minimalism carried to such lengths
must have led to a disappearance of the symbolic stratum
of a work and to treating it as a non-illusionistic object.
Wfadysfaw Strzeminski
Unism in Painting
Our plastic sensitivity and each of our judgments on works
of art are formed by the huge pressure of the Baroque
tradition . It is easy to talk about pulling down tradition. It is
easy to oppose against traditional culture our own rude-
ness, cut from the range of the ever more splendid phenom-
ena , for a new culture can emerge on the ruins of an old
one , only if it is so much more powerful as the preceding,
that it can effectively oppose the values produced by it
against old ones.
The power of Baroque is not the power of expression
alone , or of the other expressions akin to it , like the
trad it ion, the past , the honour of ancestors , the Roman
culture , etc . Baroque is an honest and intense work of 50
painters, such that each one of them would be enough to
bring about a splendid flourish of art. The collective effort
of such painters as Rembrandt , Murillo, Velasquez , Titian,
Tintoretto , El Greco , Correggio , Rubens, and a great
number of minor but still very great ones - has produced
86
Wfadysfaw Strzeminski, Unism in painting,
Cat. 39 Strzeminski 1931 ~
a consistent and uniform system of Baroque painting . An
overcoming of the Baroque tradition is not a breaking of
the word "tradition ", but of the extraordinary power of
those true and great painters.
What the power of the Baroque conception is and how its
standards sometimes become apparently universal and
extemporal , can be witnessed by a comparison of the
Baroque form with the form of Cezanne and cubism as it
existed before 1918. The Baroque came about, when a
picture ceased to be a part of a wall decoration. A Renais-
sance picture was a part of architecture and its destiny was
to fill the surface of a wall. A wall , limited from above by a
vault, was symmetrical. Hence, the symmetrical construc-
tion of a Renaissance picture . A wall had its directions :
vertical , horizontal, curved. A Renaissance picture ought to
have contained those directions in variously modified
forms to repeat the architectonic rhythm and thus to
become unified with the architectural setting. A Renais-
sance picture was not a self-sufficient unit : it was a part
of architecture and it was dependent on it; it was united
with arch itecture by direct or modified repetition of its
elements . It has all its strength only in the architectural
setting for which it had been painted and by which it had
been determined.
Taking the picture away from the wall must have caused
a revision of ideas about painting. Symmetry does not
offer a true construction. A symmetrical picture is not built,
for each of its axes of symmetry can be prolonged inde-
finitely. Thereby it never yields a finished and consistent
whole . It was necessary to propose a new system of con-
struction by line and colour.
A line in Baroque is conceived as a sign of a directed
tension. Every Baroque line is a dynamic sign. Every line
is closed by another one which it meets. A clash of lines
produces a closing of a picture . A form that arises in effect,
is a result of a struggle of forces ; it has its center produced
by mutual pressures of directed tensions. A central com-
position is a result of a tendency to base the construction
of a picture upon its own assumptions; to build a picture
with the elements which it has inherent in itself, rather than
with those imposed on it by architecture.
The building of a picture by colour occurs as if for the
second time, independent on its linear construction .
Colour is arranged by its weight. The notion of weight,
heaviness , pressure is a dynamic concept. We see that
colour has also been made dynam ic by the Baroque . The
 BAROQUE
Picture structure
BAROK The skeleton of the painting is formed by lines of tension
extending from the outlines forming the delineation of the
figure - the contour. The mutual termination effect under-
lines the intrinsic completeness of the pictorial image.
The dynamic charact~r of the entire painting and the flow-
ing transitions in the figures are the result of the dyna-
B mism of the lines of tension.
u
D
0
w Napt•ola klerunkowe,
A wytworzone przez llnJe
(granloa keztaUu-kon-
tur) tworz&1 ezklelet
0 obrazu; wzaJemne za -
B mykanle
Jednego
••• (uderzenla
o drugle) na-
R pl•O klerunkowych
woduJ• zwarto•o
po-
obra -
A zu . z dynamlzmu na-

z pl•O
nlka
klerunkowyeih
charakter
wy-
dyne•
.,,..... • I
u mlczny
1 plynno~
oalego obrazu
kaztattow. 41

colour construction of a picture is independent from its
linear construction . The linear construction aims at a knot
of directed tensions closing each other; the colour con-
struction aims at an asymmetrical balance of the hues.
A line employed by the Baroque in order to obtain a
constructional binding of shapes so as to have them tied
together into a consistent whole - has lost its continuous
character which it used to have during the Renaissance.
Not a blot , closed in itself and indifferent to the influences
of all other blots, but a soaking of colour from one shape
to another ; breaking the contour line, but still producing a
colour link between the shapes. A Baroque line is a broken
line ; it does not hedge oft the colours, but it produces
among the colourful mass a framework of the construction
of a picture, made of directed tensions. A directed tension
is a sign of pressure and thus the direction and amount of
pressure is perhaps more essential tor it than the precise
course of the touching of forms. A line can be broken
without its dynamic-constructive significance being im-
paired: the repeal of the directed tensions is still valid,
tor the direction has been marked ; and at the same time
the unity of the picture becomes greater , tor now the bind-
ing factor is not only the line, but also the colour soaking
from one shape to another and thus uniting them together
in a direct manner.
The shaping of form is carried out by contrasting juxta-
position of bright and dark colours . The greater the con-
trast is, the more conspicuously the shape emerges . The
strength of the colour contrast determines the strength
with which the shape is displayed . Sometimes the colour
contrast may have a dynamic force , owing to the strength
of the contrast of neighbouring blots as they appear to the
eyes.
The principle of contrast holds not only for colours , but
tor shapes as well. More or less conspicuously displayed
shapes; sharp and vague shapes ; large and small ones;
shapes of various character; dark shapes against a light
background and light ones against a dark background;
a variety of painted materials, causing a va riety in textures .
Applying a strict standard of form to the analysis of the
paintings of Cezanne , we note in the first place a remark-
able difference in colour.
Impressionism, by then ruling with its principle of multiple
colour and of using the whole scale of hues instead of the
Baroque colour gamuts (the golden gamut , the silver
gamut and impressionism) , with its theory of opposing
colours - was applied by Cezanne. Apparently, at first
glance , Cezanne's pictures look as something quite dif-
ferent from Baroque paintings, Actually, however, the
broadening of the scale of colours is here only an increase
of the number of colour contrasts of a Baroque painting .
The grouping of colours in Cezanne is according to the
principle of contrasts (the red emphasized by the green,
etc.) . The principle of contrasts is the main principle of
Baroque painting. Cezanne has never abandoned this
principle. His departure from it is apparent only. Actually,
his juxtapositions of colours remain as contrasting as the
Baroque ones. The achievements of impressionism have
been absorbed by the Baroque . Impressionism could not
yet develop its own system, when it had been already
absorbed by the Baroque and applied to enrich its form .
In every other respect Cezanne remains a continuator of
the Baroque painting. The features of his art are: the wan-
ing of contour lines as broken by colour (conceived in an
impressionistic manner, and not as shade, as it used to be
in the strict Baroque), an independence of colour on line,
the mutual repeal of the directed tensions, an arrange-
ment of colours by their values to attain an asymmetrical
balance.
Applying the same test of objective form to cubism,
especially to its early period befor the epoch-making break
through made by Jeanneret and Ozenfant about 1918, we
must state that the first phases of cubism are Baroque, a
very conscious application, in a purified and intensified
manner, of the same principles which are remarkable tor
the Baroque art.
In cubism, we remark directed tensions as the main con-
structive element in a picture. In Baroque, these tensions
were often veiled as inner or outer contours, with all their
accidental character. Cubism, by introducing the principle
of geometrisation, has brought those tensions to relief,
emphasized them and visualized the framework of the
picture and the way in which it is constructed. The aim of
these efforts has remained unchanged. The trick - mutual
repeal of the directed tensions - has remained the same.
The scale of colours is richer even it compared with
Cezanne 's colour scale . It has been achieved by introduc-
ing the element of texture, or indeed by its more conscious
and common application. The texture is the state of a
coloured surface . The manner in which paint is applied
determines so diversified colour impressions that no
juxtapositions of hues can match them.

89

OEZANNE
Przewega klerunk6w B
plonowyoh
myoh,
I pozlo•
odpowladaJ'I·
u
eye h pion om I pozlo-
D
mom granlo obrazu. Na- 0
pl•ota klerunkowe na- w
bleraJ .. charakteru geo- A
metryoznago, zmnleJ-
•z•J11oago loh plyn- 0
no60. Oz••t• atoeowa- B
nla zanlku granlc (nuy-
R
"""'" formy I lok•lluc:jl llnji).
ROwnomlarna konden- A
aaoJa tormy na caleJ z
powlerzohnl obrazu.
~
Similarly as colour used to be conceived in Baroque, the
cubists conceived texture dynamically. They made the
texture dynamical, apprehending it as a trace of a certain
motion, as a sign of movement - or of rest, depending on
the arrangement of the molecular particles of colour
making up the texture. E.g., a needled texture, a shaggy
texture, a mat texture, a gleaming or a dotted texture.
The texture and colour on a cubist picture are arranged on
the principle of value of the coloured or textural masses -
independent on the linear construction . The independence
of colour from line in Baroque found its reflection in cubism
as the independence of texture and colour from line.
The contrast of shapes expressed in a more conscious
and clear way (the contrast of geometrical shapes is easier
for us to observe than the contrast of non-geometrical
forms), the contrast of colours intensified up to the contrast
of texture, complement the analogy of a cubistic and
Baroque picture as to the elements of their construction .
A cubist painting is so built that the vertical and horizontal
directions are usually in the center, arranged along the
axes of construction. The curved and slanting lines, though
they may be found in the middle, are mainly grouped near
the borders of the picture. Thus the center is connected
with horizontal and vertical borders by the rhythm of its
directions, and at the same time it does not merge with
them due to the shapes placed near the borders. There is
a contrast between the form af a picture as a whole and
its borders: a contrast which does not permit for a full
union of the form of the picture with its su'rface and with
its limits. The form remains unconnected with the frame;
it has its own center of gravity, unconnected with the
borders and contrasting with them . A result of such
contrast is a greater intensity of form .
That the phenomenon is by no means accidental, can be
witnessed by the fact that in cubist pictures painted in
oval frames, straight lines abound near the edges, while
there are curves in the center . The phenomenon is constant
and it consists in that the center of a picture repeats the
rhythm of the borders , while repeating its borderline
parts by contrasting directions. Therefore it is quite sound
to call the cubistic construction a central construction.
The suctional force of the Baroque tradition is so great
that even Cezanne has surrendered to it - Cezanne, com-
monly believed to be the initiator of modern art. He was
an impressionist , but he became the man who broadened
the scope and continued the Baroque . Cubism, believed
90
CEZANNE
Picture structure
Verticals and horizontals dominate , and coincide with the
vertical and horizontal limits of the painting . The lines of
tension are geometrical in character, thus reducing the
effect of flow . The boundaries are frequently found to
disappear (saturation of form and localisation of line) . The
form is concentrated over the entire surface of the paint-
ing.
to be the extreme opposite of the whole old world of art -
turns out , upon an analysis of its form , to be a continuation
and a development of the Baroque, its consequent purifica-
tion . The problem of subject matter plays no role , as does
the problem of content in general. A lack of any object,
abstraction - is as good a content as any other. It is the
form which is the only and exclusive value in painting, as
well as the only test of progress or regress in art. It is the
analysis of form which proves that the Baroque , Cezanne
and cubism all have the same meaning.
A general analysis of all the varieties of the Baroque paint-
ing must lead to a conclusion that the Baroque is the
painting of dramatic tensions, the painting of forces. A
drama is a reconciliation of conflicts . The force , the power
of these conflicts and the energy with which the discrepant
and splitting tendencies are brought to a homogenuous
expression; the power that subdues these tendencies and
enforces them to unanimous action; the compulsion coerc-
ing the unity of expression - this is what determines the
profundity and the scope of the drama. The Baroque is a
drama of painterly conflicts, a compact of dualism of form:
centrality of construction . The form has its own center of
concentration. The shapes are grouped around it. A central
construction tends to be enclosed within a circle or ellipse
and it yields a strict mutual connection of shapes. But at
the same time, the central construction , giving an arrange-
ment of shapes that are attracted towards the center, fails
to yield any connection with the borders of a picture ; it
forgets the border, for the mind is exclusively devoted to
the connecting of the shapes. This is the source of the first
conflict: of the form as everything that is painted on a
picture with the space in which it is painted, with the
flat square of the canvas. The attitude to the form is such,
as if it had been first seen in some vision, and only then
transferred to the stretcher. The dualism of a painted form
and of a stretcher corresponds to the Baroque conception:
of the maximum scope of painterly conflicts and of dra-
matic contrasts. The contrast of the ellipse of the form
and the square of the stretcher is a formal contrast , i. e, it
increases the general tension of form and augments the
amount of contrasts . The contrast is a letter in the alphabet
of the Baroque painting.
Independence of colour from line, another conflict of the
Baroque painting. The line makes up the framework of
construction by clashes of lines and by their balancing
each other. The colour or texture are fluid, passing one

---t PRZED 1918
,----,o;;:::::---,::;ir----, Hudowa obrazu w d1tl11xyrn
dqgu pozostaje o~rocJko-
y.a. Kn.tally ~ po-... ·i1tza-
ne ze 11obq.lea: w dahn:ym
ri4,{u niut'!'lpolone z pla·
ucz, ·zn11ohn1:1 :u. Konden•
lla(':jaformyze;iwoim f1hrod·
kwtfl pvzo:,laje .- kontra-
84:iedopn. ·ittnbni obniu.
into another, arranged by their values so that they make a
symmetrical balance. The contrast of colour not limited
by a line (in the sense of a contour). The contrast of the
hard linear scaffolding with the dissipation of colour.
Colour and line ought to cooperate and flow to the shape
that is commonly and uniformly determined by both line
and colour. Independence, the lack of coordination in the
determination of shape , the discrepancy in handling it,
involve a contradiction, conflict and dualism , enriching
the form and increasing its dramatic tension.
The clashes of lines, the mutual closing up of the directed
tensions, as the third conflict of the Baroque painting and
a sign of direct action, result from the approach to a picture
as a dynamic thing and of apprehending each shape and
each line, not merely as a line, but as a sign of force.
Actually, a line is a line and no more. This is its objective
truth. It is placed where it lies, and its task is to cut one
colour from another. In Baroque, however, it is bestowed
with an apparent motion which in fact is not there. This
apparent motion pulls the line away from its proper place,
forces it to glide on a picture, whereby a conflict is brought
about of a line as a motionless border between colours and
a line as a· movable, dynamic and gliding sign of force . A
line begins to move, without ever leaving its place.
Dynamism is not a purely plastic phenomenon. The plastic
art is the shaping of space . Only spatial phenomena can
belong to it. Dynamism is motion, and thus a spatio-
temporal thing, an overcoming of space in time. The
clashes of lines which form the main directive of the
Baroque construction, are a dynamic action . Each gliding
of a line, every clash of lines, involves a certain period of
time during which it is carried out. The greater is the
dynamic differentiation, the more time is embodied in a
picture. Obvious motions, weakened motions, some that
are so weak as hardly to be there at all , static places,
clashes of various force, places where lines sink into the
colour or texture or where a line is no longer active be-
cause of a counteraction of texture or colour , all this causes
the presence of such an amount of time in a Baroque
picture that we have almost to read it, to deciphergradually
the working of the shapes, and arrive at the seeing of the
whole by a slow synthesis. However , a picture is, or rather
ought to be , a thing designed for looking at it only . Rather
than a dramatic clash of opposing forces, it ought to be
a purely visual phenomenon. The idea, alien to painting,
stands in the way and bars the understanding that a picture
Picture structure
Consequential geometry of line harmonises rhythmically
with the geometry of the picture limits . This results in im-
proved connection between the figures, the painting itself
and its boundaries. Each directional tension line is re-
pressed firmly by another, or by a pointillist section. The
vertical axis of the painting consists of a combination of
the figures with the vertical boundary line.
CUBISM
after 1918 before 1918
The picture structure remains centralised . The figures are
interlinked, but still harmonise with the picture surface .
Concentration of the form with its central point is in con-
flict with the surface of the picture.
is not an illusion of a phenomenon seen elswhere or even
calculated right away and transported to a picture, but that
it is itself, in itself and for itself . The basic assumption
underlying the Baroque is that a picture should be a sign
of the dramatic sublimity. The sublime is what finds its
expression in the dynamism of directed tensions and in the
dramatism of the blows inflicted by lines to other lines . It
implies the necessity of embodying a large amount of time
within a picture. The more time is there, the more ample
and profound is the dynamic drama.
The contrast of shapes, gradually more and more con-
spicuous in Baroque, became the directing principle in
cubism. It is not only the contrast of an curved beside a
straight line, or of the vertical beside the horizontal, or of
the large beside the small, but also the contrast of a
distinct shape against a less distinctly marked one, the
contrast of a summarily sketched shape and a minutely
elaborated one , as well as other contrasts originating in the
differences in the apprehension of form. The principle of
contrast, breaking a picture into a number of shapes that
cannot be connected, torn from each other and struggling ,
causes a general warfare of all the shapes, a general
dramatic conflict of the contrasting form. A shape is not a
result of itself and of the shape of the picture to which it
should be related . It has no inherent necessity that would
place and unite it with the picture . A shape is there only to
increase the contrasting tension of the other shapes . No
shape has appeared because of an obvious necessity of its
existence: it is only indirectly necessary, to the other ones
and not to itself nor to the picture. It is impossible to attain
such a connection of shapes that would produce a uniform
painterly organism by means of a search for contrasts. The
struggling shapes remain hostile to each other; they 'll
always be alien shapes, making up the tension of a con-
densed, rich and powerful form, abundant in dramatic
contrasts of shapes, a full form that has a unity of its inner
links imposed upon it by coercion and violence, but that
will never be a painterly organism having all its parts
related by its inner logic.
The contrast of colours, in all varieties of Baroque painting,
is always present either as the dark-bright oppositions (in
the strict Baroque), or as juxtapositions of the opposing
colours (yellow-blue, red-green etc. in the impressionistic
Baroque of Cezanne), or else as texture contrasts in the
abstract and geometrical Baroque - in cubism .
91
 BAROQUE
CHOICE OF LINE
.---~-- - 1 BAROK The directional lines of tension disappear either on con-
<(
) ·) 4, Ii tact with others , or by absorption into darker colour. The

( · '~'
'._/"":
: .. contour line disappears wherever a darker colour passes
from one side of the contour to the other. The contour
does not depend on the choice of line.
N~kt ldenmkowe ualuk •Ibo
CEZANNE
pnr1 ulbte,::NI 11.,blDetni. albo
pn;~ ....... w .o&oru,
..... The baroque figure 2 is broken down into elemental
..,... Li•Ja..... ,.,.. :saolb
1d1M kofor ~ pnemods1
1111D, parts : the straight line and the curved line. The aim here
1 }fodlwJ111,onyIINlant .. dnll(4.
N'"-ltilNlllt ICOltt..,. o4 Hall.
is to reduce the flowing effect of the line and to unite each

~~~~~~~~~O~E~ZA~N~N~E
--
a-1.t,... ...
of its components with the corresponding area in the
painting, restraint being introduced either by an opposing

-
-,•af'ri
wmtliowe:
pkr-
11-k
line (a) or by paint entering the area (from the background
,.......,,....
,.....,_e11R,t,a·
.... 1:
towards the figure or from the figure towards the back-
....t'-lltl-
........., ground). This interrupts the continuity of the contour line
"""'"'··~
6W ......
..... a..pnn""k
... ",._
(b). There is an attempt made to localise the dynamic con-
.... l!d ........ .,. •• ,.
•ltio pfff'II
l'nHl<lhko' y
llolc>r
b
tent of each line.
lh,-bd ........
1bdaft•""lla).
ffll"l'JW!IW.J .. ~
J:1t.,~11.1o1..,
.. ,_
... , lb •. ll>t! ....
.,;. ·" · 11...i.-i-
.J -- ---~
. ,.... 1. dy.,.mit"'"
........ , lhj l

Two colours, hitting one beside the other, break the unity
of the picture by their contrast; they divide the picture into
as many parts as there are contrasting patches . The greater
the contrast of colours, is the stronger their blows, the
greater the span of painterly conflicts turns out to be. The
more irrevokably split into parts the picture is, the more it
is torn apart by clashes of colours, the greater is the
dramatic intensity of the painterly form . A form that is
strung to infinity, a form that is being fed but is never
saturated, a hampered rush - this is the essential content
of a Baroque picture. A painting, torn by colour into two
parts which cannot be connected, but still connected
elswhere because of the dissipation of colour and the
fading of borders .
The contrast of colours not only divides a picture into parts
that cannot be linked together: the contrast of colours
produces the greatest intensity of form at the border
between the colours. The intensity of form is not evenly
distributed: there are formal knots and formal voids. There
are contrasts of condensed form with places where the
form is almost nonexistent. Thus, the variety of the inten-
sity of form divides the picture into parts of differing
character, into parts that are alien to each other, united
only by their common dramatic sublimity.
Against this dualistic conception , attempting to connect
things that cannot be connected and finding its reason
not in the attainment of its intended objective, but in the
power of the struggling forces and in the too strenuous
effort wasted to subdue them, against this conception
producing forces in order to fight them continuously, but
never to conquer them - we have to oppose a conception
of a picture as a reconciled and organic entity. The
dualistic conception must be replaced by the unistic one.
Rather than the sublime dramatic outbursts and the power
of forces - a picture, as organic as nature.
The analysis of all the directives of the Baroque painting
ought to lead us to the conclusion that the Baroque has
never been capable of producing a truly uniform painterly
organism and that, attaining the maximum of contrasting
dramatic tensions, it could not connect them. It was satis-
fied with the formal significance of its potential tendency
to establish some link between them . Instead of a real
connection seen with the eyes and directly - it produced
the link that was understood by the mind as a tendency,
but that could not be actually seen.
The attraction of the Baroque is so strong that, reasoning
in Baroque terms, we are unaware of the fact, and we
believe that we are free from this way of thinking. The main
argument in favor of a good picture: "rich form" or "sat-
urated form" - is an argument only within the Baroque
concepts. What is a "rich form"? We have it, where there is
a large amount of contrasts of form, where there are huge
dynamic actions, but hampered by other ones, where
there is a great varie .ty and sensitivity in the application of
paint and contrasts of texture. But these notions themselves
define the essence of Baroque, its ideal, the end of its
pursuits! Now, is the richness of form and the prefection
of a picture equivalent to its Baroque character? The more
Baroque there is in it, the better is the picture?
It is time to revise the concept of richness of a painterly
form and the other related concepts. A cursory analysis of
these concepts should persuade us that what we call rich
form etc. is just that which breaks the uniformity of a
picture, divides its unity, replaces its unity by a mechanical
patchwork of parts that cannot be connected. Rather than
contrast, it is the unity and the means aiming at producing
it that ought to be the standard of a picture's form now.
The centrality of a picture does not lead to its unity, for it
brings about a contrast of form with the space on which it
is placed. In the central construction we note a distinct
center around which the form grows : the intensity of form
decreases as the distance from it becomes greater. The
whole form, tending to close itself, approaches the shape
of an ellipse or circle - overtly or in a concealed way.
When the closure is overt, curves predominate; when it is
concealed, there are slanting lines near the borders. The
whole construction of form is calculated so as to produce
contrast that appears post factum; a contrast of form with
the borders of the picture.
This manner of construction contradicts the principle of
the equivalence of space of a picture. Every square inch of
a picture is equal in its value and it contributes to the
construction of the picture in the same degree. Pushing
some parts of a picture to the fore, while others are at the
same time neglected, is not justified . The surface of a pic-
ture is uniform, and thus the intensity of form should be
evenly distributed. The centrality of construction results
from the visionary character of the form. The form is seen
as something separate from the picture; it is experienced
outside of the picture. As a drop of water, such form
assumes the shape of a circle or ellipse. The visionary

92
 CHOICE OF LINE IN CUBISM
Before 1918:
e~1:n
QC l'i noy
j::·:il~
::~::,·~~:;
i pnti oiu y

The verticals and horizontals are located in the centre of

' l
r~·tm. 1mwl 11r tuJ 11•
,·y r ~- I m ~runi c
the painting . Their rhythm , a repetition of the rhythm of
UJ o hra
~ k111.h
1, u, w i11:l1>
dty 1. ohn u: ••m
the limits of the painting, links the figures to such an ex-
/'"'?tj:-19- ~ ::~ ~if~~f:'.
;:;~; tent with the painting that the two grow together . The
~ curved lines and diagonals are located in the fringe areas ,
.
-· -
1,,
I
Q ~':!.e/,
·;::,~
~n,
•: so that a contrast is created between the form as a whole
\ . \ ~ ~: lt!:~~!:y l~:~: and the borders of the painting.
(r my jnko t aloSci 1.
n. Jtntnicami obr:11.u. After 1918:
The lines progress in relationship to one another in such
LIN J A a way that they form a mutual termination , as in the pre-
vious period of Cubism . A new feature is the linking of
W KUBIZMIE
figures by granting them a common boundary (the boun-
U11}e "'lU i<l • •d ot>II
PO ROKU 1918 j11d1u1w• I011•1nkudo
dtut:i ef lllll, te• u·
dary of one figure is at the same time the continuation of
_..,..., ___ ~mnleiJ l•umylt•·
the boundary of the other) . The structural axes (common

~ liL
PIJ•kwpoprud11im

.
nk""'le lu1bl u nu.
••••• IN.. ,..... lines) passing through the painting serve to connect the
111ek"*1•N0•,pN: n
...... ,.11n1·
nk y••,.SI .. J (...-.·
figures they delineate .
11M'•~ok•1lat-
h1ie,,tdooi.~~lll·
. i.-.. rra• k y .,,..
, 1~0).0.,1e b...t.l-
• y f••p(llae ll•ie)
pnn:llo4~ ,.,u,.
otwu. •l•t111 /filO
.... , .. ,,.,. kl0') ~11
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experiencing of form in an isolated environment without
any borders - in an abstract and unlimited space - could
not produce any other results.
However, if it was clearly recognized that the true unity
of a picture is not only the connection of its shapes, but
also a tight union of these shapes with the space out of
which they grow , and that the linking of the shapes alone
is not sufficient: for the true unity of a picture is the unity
of what was before it came to being with what would
appear after it is painted - then, a transition would
have to be made from the illusionism of subjective form,
from its visionary experiencing - to the objective and
organic construction of a picture. The innate qualities of
the picture (the square of its sides, the flatness of its sur-
face) are not merely a field on which a form that has
emerged independently from them could be placed. The
innate qualities (the square of the sides and the flatness of
the surface) are a component of the construction of the
picture, even perhaps the most important one , for it is
only depending on them that the other shapes in the
picture may be brought about. They must arise in depen-
dence and in the most strict connection.
A Baroque picture used to be constructed by dynamism.
Ever since, dynamism not only must not be a factor in the
construction of a picture, but it ought not to be at all
applied in it.
A dynamic shape has never been grown together with the
surface of a p icture. It does not grow out from the place
where it is . Its motion is always directed somewhere
beyond the borders of the picture. A dynamic gliding of a
shape along the surface pulls it away from where it is
situated , separates it from the picture and throws it away
from it. There should be no gliding shapes on a picture.
There ought to be a complete unity of what is painted with
the surface on which those shapes are painted. The shapes
and the surface of a picture must form a complete and
indissoluble unity .
Dynamism cannot produce a true construction of a picture .
A construction is: the complete growing together of the
shapes with each other and with the surface of the picture,
so that none of those shapes could break away from the
whole, or fall out of it, forming a disconnected and separa-
te part. Since a dynamic shape has an exactly opposite
character: it does form a disconnected part, it wishes to
fall out from the whole, it is not grown together neither
with the surface of the picture nor with the other shapes,
therefore it cannot be used as the building material for a
picture . The dynamic mode of construction : clashes of all
shapes against all others - produces an effect of chaos ,
momentarily stopped at a point of order, retaining an ap-
parence of arrangement as a result of the destructive
action of the clashes of shapes. The shapes do not grow
out from the picture, nor are they grown together with it
or form an organ ism by growing together with each other.
Their being stopped at the place where they belong and
their incapability to leave it, is the result of coercive action
by other shapes. This coercion is the best proof that the
construction is not truly organic . If it were organic, coer-
cion would be unnecessary. If one of the shapes was taken
away , its pressure would fall down, the balance would
decrease and the whole subtlety of the compulsory
pseudo-construction would be undermined. Whereas every
shape ought to be so grown together with the picture all by
itself and directly , that the aid from any other shape should
be superfluous . The coercive character of the construction
is the best proof of the deficiencies in its organ icity .
Motion is a spatio-temporal phenomenon. A directed ten-
sion is a sign of motion , and thus it involves an element
of time, Rather than to look at a picture and see it, we are
compelled to read it out. The more of directed tensions
and clashes there are, the greater is the amount of time
embodied in a picture, the more remote it is from the pure
plastic art which tends to the simultaneity of a spatio-
visual phenomenon. The aim of our pursuits is an extra-
temporal picture , operating with the concept of space
only .
Attempts have been made to eliminate t ime in suprematist
and surrealist pictures. It has been attained by mutual
neutrality of shapes. They are so placed in a picture that
they do not influence each other. Existence of shapes on
one level and independently, the lack of so-called mutual
connection between them , no direct influence , all this
makes that we do not feel the duration of time in those
pictures. But they cannot be recognized as wholly non-
temporal. The system of isolated and independent shapes
emphasizes the parallelness of the short spans of time ,
minimally small, that are contained in those shapes and
brought into relief by parallel distances between them .
Seeing the shapes and the distances between them, we
see as if not a single picture , but a series of independent
pictures . We must take some time to have them united into
one visual impression . In this way an apparently extern-

93

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~- 71 8
poral picture becomes a temporal-spatial picture. Every
division of a picture requires time for its visual union. Only
a completely uniform picture can be non temporal and
purely spatial.
Recently, several artistic directions evolved to the conv ic-
tion that the sole building materia l for a picture ought to
be a plane and that the line mustn 't continue in the picture
in its former stroke form. This symptom ought to be recog-
nized as a positive one, for a line is a much more fluid and
dynamic shape than a plane, even apart from the fact that
a plane , as a closed form, grows together with the surface
of a picture much easier than a line which, because of the
lack of natural ending, can always be infinitely prolonged
and it always displays a tendency to get outside of the
picture. This is indeed the contribution of suprematism
which has been many years in advance of all the other
directions of modern painting by introducing the plane.
Geometrism has existed in all the varieties of the Baroque .
In strict Baroque, all shapes have been pulled up to the
curved or S-shaped form (the noble sinuosity of form). Be-
ginning from Cezanne, and more regularly in cubism, the
shapes are reduced to a straight line and curve - the
simplest and most clear forms. It was believed that in this
way a strict and precise construction could be produced.
However, a picture cannot be built by geometry. Indeed,
geometry offers a clear and precise building material, but
it does not determine its place in the picture in as strict a
manner as the material is strict. In consequence , a painter
defines the place for the shapes by intuition only. The lack
of objective laws compells to seek support in intuition, a
subjective and changing thing, dependent on personal
taste. It is time to clear up the misunderstanding by which
geometrical construction is almost a strict work , almost a
piece of engineering. Actually, geometrical construction is
as arbitrary and subjective as any other. Geometry can set
into relief the construction as it is, to show it more clearly
than it would be possible without geometr ization, but it
cannot bu ild up anything itself. It offers no tangible prin-
ciples of construction.
A picture can be constructed only by a uniform numerical
formula for the whole picture; which means that the rela-
tions of size of one shape to the size of another are defined
by the same numerical expression . Of course, the starting
point is the length and breadth of the picture . An inclusion
of the size of the picture in the series of sizes of the other
shapes and their mutual relating and making them depen-
94
BAROQUE
COLOUR INDEPENDENT OF LINE
CEZANNE
dent on each other by a common numerical formula is the
most sure way of connecting the shapes with the borders
of the picture. The same rhythm of numerical relations
of all the shapes is their truest connection. Starting the
construction of a picture, we should take its length and
breadth as the basic dimensions and as the starting point ,
while the breadth and length as well as the place of each
shape should be dependent on them . In this way the
dimensions of a picture become the main thing in it,
rather than a secondary one, existing as if beyond our
awareness , as it used to be in the Baroque, but something
basic and determining the construction and its character.
It should not be thought that the use of numerical computa-
tions can make an idea mechanical and all the activities
of a painter automatic . Even a complete knowledge of the
methods of calculation cannot make a picture. Calculation
must go together with intuition . It is the cooperation and
reinforcing of one activity by the other that produces a
picture. A positive result of an application of the computa-
tion method is an objectivisation of a picture, getting rid of
individual tricks and graphological vibrations, a shift of the
focus to the picture, its law and its construction - instead
of revealing the subtleties of volition of this or another
painter in a picture, instead of expressing such or other
of their tastes. The law of construction of the picture
should be superior to the individuality of the person who
paints . A work of a painter ought to be always greater
than his casual and changing nature.
The contrast of colours in a picture , applied by the Baroque
for the display of dramatic conflicts - should not be
applied in the unistic conception. Not a division of a
picture into parts in warfare, but unanimity of all the
parts of the picture. So as an organism is uniform and falls
dead when it is torn apart, so a breaking by colour kills a
picture, makes it dead and compells to look for outer and
compulsory means to revive the corpse . Only then the
bands of directed tensions begin to perform their role .
But the picture is dead, it is in decay , it falls into separate
parts. The contrast of colours causes the death of the
picture. Now what is the use of intensity of form in a
dead body?
Colours must be grouped in a picture not by contrasts, not
to break the picture apart, but to unite and interconnect it.
Not by discrepancies of hue, not by what separates, but by
what brings together . The gamut of colours does not bring
together , for the dark-bright contrasts inherent in it break

KUBIZM
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the picture. Contrasts of texture break it by the variety of
the power of light involved in them. The junction of colours
should not be attained in a sort of unicoloured manner,
for such a manner contains to much variety in the power
of light in a hue. Thus, colour should not be arranged along
the dark-bright direction, but along a horizontal line that
connects the variety of colours with equal tension. The trick
of a picture bringing about its uniformity is the equality of
the power of light of colours. No colour jumps away from
the others, none sink deeper down: what remains, is a
uniform mass of shapes and the surface of the picture,
wholly linked with the surface of the canvas . The colour
solution makes the picture uniform and thus it does not
require any compulsory connections binding together the
colours that are torn apart, or what can by no possible
means be bound together.
Only at that stage the independence of colour from line
can be eliminated . A line should not mend up what the
colour has broken apart; it is not the line that ties together
the picture torn by the colour, but their unanimous action
emerging, aiming at the common end: at the production of
a uniform picture, united with itself in all its parts and
growing out of its innate qua lities : the square of its sides
and its flat surface. A unified picture is not a clash of
shapes, it is not a drama, but it is , like every organism ,
a unanimous action of all its parts ; it conveys the same
meaning by the express ion of its line and colour. Every
element of its construction: line, colour, texture - pursues
the common end, but each of them does it in its appro-
priate way. And since their objectives are different, since
the end is not a picture as a drama, but a picture as an
organic thing, therefore each of these elements has a
different purpose and also a different mode of solution of
its own .
The flatness of the picture is one of the symptoms of the
unambiguity of expression of line and colour . The colour
is no longer independent from the line . The line is the
border of the colour. The colour does not flow through the
line. It is related to it , mutually dependent; they form a
unity. The elimination of their dualism is followed by the
elimination of dualism of the flat surface of the canvas and
the volumetric form of the shapes painted on it. The
picture, aiming at complete uniformity, should be the
result of its innate qualities (flat surface and square bor-
ders). However, the Baroque conception had as its
assumption a collection of contrasts , opposing them
CUBISM
Before 1918 COLOUR INDEPENDENT OF LINE
After 1918 Colour dependent on line
against the innate qualities and opposing one against the
other. A picture that contained little contrasts , which was
in agreement with its innate qualities and with itself - was
a dull picture from the Baroque point of view. For a Baroque
man the non-organical is the ultimate; what is unattain-
able is an achievement; a result is nothing; the exerted
effort is everything. And therefore the partial attempts aCa
transition to the flatness of the picture made within the
limits of the Baroque, failed to have yielded complete
results. In cubism of the last period, or even in suprematism
or Mondrian's neo-plasticism, the surfaces are flat, but the
whole is not yet flat. A painter still looks for contrasts;
painting flat, he still fails to understand, what conse-
quences it should imply. Hence follows the colour that
divides the picture, the contrasts of colour which make
several separate surfaces out of a uniformly flat picture.
Hence the contrasts of shapes which result in the separa-
teness and impossibility to connect those shapes; instead
of a uniform picture, there is a number of shapes into which
the picture is divided. Hence the dynamism leading the
shapes outside the picture and making it impossible for
them to grow together with the picture's surface. Hence,
also, the central construction, so frequently employed now
by cubists. All these faults have their origin in the failure
to think up the essence of the phenomenon that the flatness
of shapes is not sufficient, that it should be only the first
step on the way towards the flatness of the whole picture ;
that we must become aware of the character of the evolu-
tion of contemporary painting as a transition from the
Baroque dramatism to the unistic conception of the picture
as a painterly organism; that the unism of painting requires
an unambiguous agreement of all the elements of the
picture with its innate qualities ; that the flatness of the
whole surface of the picture is its innate quality and thus,
that the whole picture ought to form a uniformly flat surface
after it is painted. A picture must be uniform and flat.
Against the Baroque dramatism, the unism of painting
must be opposed.
95
 CONFLICTS / DUALISMS of BAROQUE
Centered structure
The form has its own concentration centre. The result is a
contrast between the form (displayed as a whole) and the
picture surface, which in the nature of things has no cen-
tral point. In some cases the central element is kept
hidden (no clearly visible focus), but there is none the
less still no link with the picture boundary, since in the
border areas curved and diagonal figures are compressed
"'"
·rmU·,,11·,,..i,
~ · together, and cut off the form from the boundaries (a
bn,/ou' 1· -~---""'
multiplicity of directional rhythms) .
COLOUR INDEPENDENT OF LINE

"Praesens" Library Mieczysfaw Szczuka, "Art and Reality"

Edited by Stanistaw Baczyr'lski and Wtadystaw Strzemir'lski
1. Mondriaan: Neoplasticism (in print)
2. Albert Gleizes : Man's creative task in the pictorial arts
3. Wt. Strzemir'lski: Un ism in painting . 10 illustrations on
enamel paper.
Further publications in preparation.
Editorial and administrative offices : Warsaw, Bagatela 10
m 36; Tel.170-61
Bank account: P. K. O. No 19600
Stockroom: in the "Polish Book House", pl. Trzech Krzyzy 8.
EUROPA
the only modern periodical dedicated to ART ,
PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS.
Editorial and administrative offices:
Warsaw, Bagatela 10 m 36; Tel. 170-61
Bank account: P. K. 0. No 19600
(" Sztuka a rzeczywistos6 " ), Dzwignia 1927,
No 4 (July).
An extensive paper by Szczuka is here reprinted fully and
unaltered. It is the last programme statement by the artist,
the fullest development of his earlier concepts. Remarkable
in it is the negative opinion, expressly stated, about the
"painter's" version of constructivism as represented in
Poland, among others, by Strzemir'lski. In accordance with
the basic tendency of the magazine in which the paper
appeared, Szczuka emphasized an analysis of the develop-
ment of art in terms of socio-economic and class factors
as shaping the artistic consciousness of the epoch. On the
other hand , he made utilitarianism into the absolute and
sole principle of the art of the future.

Mieczystaw Szczuka

Art and Reality

A remarkable feature of the evolution that has occured in

the domain of art during the rule of modern capitalism is
the farreaching division between a worker in art - the
artist, and everyday life. This division has been particularly
conspicuous in the plastic arts. Before we pass to the
explanation of the causes of such division, we'll have to
mention the ways and conditions of labour of artists in
earlier days .
An artist of the past centuries, adapted to the social system
based upon small scale production , remained in a certain
degree of harmony with it. As we know, the limits of the arts
were broader than today . In a sense, almost every crafts-
man producing useful things was an artist: a cabinetmaker ,
locksmith, carpenter, goldsmith etc . Having a lot of time,
without too much hurry, with relatively primitive tools, he
ornated the objects he made according with certain canons
that came to be established without being too broadly
expanded or violently transformed - they could often
survive many generations. However , within such a canon,
he had a certain initiative , allowed to him by his tool,
material and artistic sense.
Those conditions changed . rad ically , when small scale
craftsmanship was substituted by capitalism, with its

96

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stormy rate of growth , violent technical revolts , uncon-
trolled market - and above all with its machine mass
production in all areas 1 .
So-called plastic arts are directly dependent on building
which is the most conspicuous for its conjunction of a
utilitarian content with an aesthetic surplus. Building is
most strictly adjusted to the life conditions of those to
whom it provides a shelter or a workshop. It is an index of
their material state, their "level of life " , the scope of their
requirements and needs in everyday life, their culture, their
class background.
A harmonious adaptation of useful objects in a home
interior (furniture , utensils, etc.) to the form of the building
itself influences their outlook (in the aesthetic sense) . In
this way, the " style" is molded (i. e., a system of aesthetic
connecting of forms) . The economically (and thereby also
culturally) privileged circles evolve their own building -
the architecture (residential , representative , religious, of-
ficial, etc.) in which they can, owing to the means which are
at their disposal, develop the aesthetic side in the greatest
degree, beside convenience and practical uses. The
emerging style of the privileged class is imposed on the
whole society - no matter if the classes had had any
germs of their own styles (as e.g . our so-called folk art) .
The pace of development of modern capitalism has not
permitted to adjust , in the artistic sense, the forms of the
produced objects of everyday use (an apartment, a house,
furniture, textiles, dishes, spoons, etc.) to the new mate-
rials, new technical means and new conditions of life.
Since every maker, beginning from a primitive man, tries
to give a beautiful form to the objects produced by him -
and since the buyer chooses such an object that is apt to
give him, beside its practical aspect, an aesthetic delight -
therefore a factory owner, too, has understood the im-
portance of the aesthetic "appeal" on the market. To gain
the " appeal " , he employed the easiest and, what was the
most important, the cheapest method . He reached for
models that could be immediately applied . They were
supplied by the past and by the contemporary "exotic"
arts, and sometimes also by the local folklore. These
sources are used in quantity ; "aesthetic" gimmiacks
are stuck on the essential content which is often quite
incompatible. We have pseudo-Antique, pseudo-Gothic,
pseudo-Chinese or pseudo-folk art. In this way the
taste of the public is molded and the tools of produc-
tion are adjusted . A home interior, beginning from the
CONFLICTS/DUALISMS of BAROQUE
THE IMPACT OF LINE ON LINE
Dynamic contrast of directional tensions
THE LINE IS BROKEN THROUGH
by another line, colour or surface
apartments of the barons of industry, bankers etc. and
ending on the flats of petty burghers, is a booth in which a
lot of unnecessary gimmicks are collected chaotically and
without any plan, depending only on the degree of wealth
of the owner. The product for the working masses is even
poorer and tawdrier - because less expensive - and of
course, there is less of it. "The art for the mob" is re-
presented by reproductions with pastoral, bellicose, pa-
triotic or religious themes, destined for the workers' homes
or for the places visited by them.
Doubtless, the development of the plastic arts during the
19th century bore the print of the character of the class
that came to power everywhere in that epoch. The Euro-
pean bourgeoisie has emerged from the so-called "third
class" or from the "volk " as the new politically and eco-
nomically privileged element. On one side, it had the
" volk", the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat pressing
upon its privileges; on the other side it had the already
formed groups of privileges, the feudals whom it attempted
to join and succeeded to do so after a short period of
agitation and struggle . And it should be remarked that in
fact the great bourgeoisie has never fought the feudals in
a really relentless manner.
Such social situation, this cowardly creeping up in the
ranks of the privileged, has been causing a deeply par-
venu attitude of the grand bourgeoisie towards art and
towards life 2 • Typically parvenue is their fondness for the
past, for the sundry "styles" and outdated fashions; their
search for beauty in what is old, what has lost its utility;
their being ashamed of those real and useful possessions
which they have brought in themselves. Hence those
aesthetic theories establishing the frontiers between
beauty and utility; only that is beautiful which has never
been of any use , or that is of no use now (the cult of the
old ruins, etc.). Never indeed has the disruption between
the "beautiful" and the useful come to such monstruous
extents. On one hand, imitations of the outmoded styles;
on the other hand, the repugnant brick barracks, built with-
out any account for hygiene (lodging houses, factory build-
ings) . People are wholly irrelevant - what is relevant, is
only the maximum of gains for the owner: building up a
factory, one is raising sheds for machines , for raw materials
and for ready products - caring very little for the people
who are going to work there. While building up lodging
houses , even the elementary principles of providing at
least bearable conditions for human life are neglected . The
97

K Dark-light (in Baroque) or contrasting colours
0 Cat. 53
N KSZTALTOW
T
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A
s KOLO
Clemno•Jaenego
(w baroku,lub
lor6w
RU
przeclwle.
kO•
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sJonlzmle baroko• 9
wym Cezanne'a).
predominating type of city building is a tenement house in
which every cubic metre must give profit. State buildings,
offices, houses of the rich , are built with apparent luxury ,
for this pays and attracts the buyer or offers the required
air of solemnity. The luxury is expressed mainly in the
outer trimming: cornices, columns, friezes etc . are gaudily
stuck around the front part of buildings , for they are
"stylish" and cost very little . The interiors are better and
more convenient. Sometimes there is some green and a
certain care for the lighting 3 . All these semblances are re-
jected outright in the building for the poorer quarters, in
the rooms for servants, keepers, in basements and garrets,
where the conditions are simply terrible 4 •
The influence of these conditions - the remarkable features
of capitalism, the psychology of the ruling class - has
been augmented by the failure of the artists to adjust to
the increased demands. An artist submerged in the old
methods of " creation", particularly an artist with his ow'n
initiative, is too slow to keep up with the pace of develop-
ment. Frequently, too, he is too expensive. As we have
already remarked, if, e. g ., architecture is concerned, the
"aesthetic " side remains the domain of pure speculation .
What remains for an artist as a consolation , is " pure art ".
All this cannot be packed up within the "division of labour"
framework. An artist is more and more withdrawn from
life, pursuing " pure art" or "art for its own sake".
There have been other causes of such " purification" of art
from the earthly elements. In the past centuries, an artist
almost always knew his patron: it could be a city , some
association , the church or some individual. Eventually, this
type of a known patron has become a minor figure. An
artist now works for an unknown public: he sends his
works to the market, to an exhibition, to a Kunsthii.ndler.
But this unknown buyer is not completely anonymous: he
must be a man who is sufficiently well-off to be able to
afford a work of art. This is the only guidepost; otherwise,
there is the unbridled stormy element of the market boom
or depression in which an artist is submerged like any
other petty producer of fancy objects.
This market has been fairly inviting: the rapidly increasing
production of the surplus value on the cost of the working
masses turned out whole new strata of buyers and con-
noisseurs; it provided the ground for a development of
those hitherto unknown conditions. While in the past an
artist knew his patron - the reverse was also true . This
contact has been broken. While an artist is facing a puzzl-
98
CONFLICTS / DUALISMS of BAROQUE
CONTRAST
of figures
of colour
(in Cezanne's Baroque Impressionism).
Strzeminski 1929 ~
ing and chaotic element of the market, feeling more or
less high or low depending on how he has been received -
the "consumer" is also facing the riddle of a completely
unfamiliar expression of " creation".
An artist, whatever the tools of his work : a poet, painter or
sculptor, assumes the air of a priest who has possessed
the secret powers 5 in a much higher degree than he used
to do. His· position towards the aesthete mass of buyers is
in a way similar to that occupied by a mediaeval alchemist:
a little of a scientist, a little of a charlatan, separating him-
self with a broad, conceited gesture from those affairs in
which he cannot feel as a "master" and priest - from the
affairs that he cannot understand, and from the market
among them . With the same gesture he isolates himself
from the " mob".
Here are the sources of individualism in art (individualism
written with the capital I at the beginning, of course). Most
varied ingredients come into relief here. Beside the reasons
already listed, what comes into account is an establishing
of frontier lines from one's competitors, a struggle for one's
piece of the market , for one's own host of "lay" audience,
all of them listening and looking with utmost devotion .
Let us also remind the phenomenon of the so-called
Bohemianism , being an apparently inseparable quality of
all the " broader " trends in art during the 19th century. It
was a kind of a school of life, a necessary preparation to
become a " true" artist. Bohemianism has doubtless had a
desocializing significance in the training of pure artists.
The life in a great city has doubtless provided the condi-
tions for such a conception of art; it has contributed to the
development of certain tendencies. The yearning for
nature, characterstic for a city dweller and a typical pro-
duct of city life (the poor health conditions, the lack of
fresh air, bright sun etc.) has found its expression in land-
scape painting , in the silence of "still lives " , in genre
painting.
A highbrow suffocating in his city looks for the powers of
"renewal" in the source of the primitive robustness of the
" volk " and the primitive tribes; hence, the fondness for
folklore, exoticism and primitivism .
The rapid heartbeat of contemporary life, the violence and
sharpness of the changes in the relationship of social
forces on one hand - and on the other, the facility of the
broad and relatively easy widespreading of the achieve-
ments of artistic technology (with vulgarization that cannot
be avoided in the process) - all this has its effects on the
 rapidity and violence of the revolutions in art. During a
relatively short period , a number of revolts have occured in
painting: classicism, romant icism , naturalism, impression-
ism. And during the 20th century , the pace of change is a
real merry -go-round .
This is strictly related to the progress in technology. The
demand for a portrait, landscape , st ill life, historical and
war paintings , actual illustration etc., is covered by pho-
tography and cinema which are beyond competition as
to their precision, quickness and cheapness as compared
with the labour of an artist that used to satisfy this kind of
needs. An artist looses ground under his feet ; whole
doma ins of work are lost for him . What remains, are formal
problems in which he goes deeper and deeper .
Already the impressionism, the first of the directions born
in the " pure " bourgeois atmosphere, has introduced the
problem of an analysis of light into art. Later on , there
would be the period of rapture for the machine. Instead of
the exp ress ing of personal moods of doubtful merit, instead
of pronouncing the mean and poor contents of the " souls"
of artistic figures , immature, frustrated and often lacking
even a modest general knowledge , there comes a reaction:
an awe for the marvels or technology (though rather short
termed) 6 .
The work on formal problems proceeds: the plastic art gets
liberated from the rule of naturalism , a literary anecdote,
etc . Th ere follows a period of a collective search for forms
and of laboratory methods of work - the endeavour to
build a work of art for itself , expressing nothing , existing
as absolutely self -sufficient7.
Easel painting has objectively become a luxury, and a
debased one at that, poured out to the exhibition market
and eventually yielding rather mean effects. For an exhibi-
tion, accessible at some fixed terms only, is overtaken by
a magazine reproduction.
As we have remarked above , an artist had to and did link
up his survival with the strata of property and he was treated
by them in various ways, but usually as a cultural surplus,
carrying out a function that was not exactly necessary -
sometimes respected , but sometimes just ridiculous .
Doomed to perpetuate his art for its own sake, the pure
art , still an artist has been alive and active in the "society"
(meaning the well-off classes, materially and in conse-
quence also culturally). Thus , an artist had to express in
his works what his patrons cared for . Of course, this did
not preclude that some individuals might have had a diffe-
rent attitude to those matters . But we are considering here
the artists as a social group.
It was of course by no means accidental that the break in
the attitudes of artists towards social issues occured
parallely with the ideological and technical crisis in art.
The same tendencies have found expression here as in
the other domains of contemporary life. The progress of
mechanization and technology makes absurd and upset
the former modes of social action and organization. The
tech no logical developments surpass the power of organiza-
tional frames of contemporary society; hence the absurd
contradictions ubiquitious both in ideology and in every
day practice . A modern artist, apparently withdrawn (con-
sidering his social situation, already discussed), without
any clear awareness of those contradictions , usually took
the path of formal researches and of contributing new
values to what the former generations had left. Having
enough of time (as there are no immediate applications),
he makes formal developments and he seeks in them the
meaning of his efforts . Indeed , the way is paved for him:
it is the easiest one - to satisfy the tastes of people who
have no time to contemplate artistic problems, but control
the material means warranting the artis 's survival. This is
not , quite obviously, the way for the more ambitious and
more richly bestowed natures, perhaps more honest. Those
people revolt and break the fixed frames; they carry to the
ultimate end the assumptions of their formal experiment ,
thereby reducing to absurd the fiction of "art for art's
sake " or of "pure" art. Disinterested (in the sense of
application) work on formal problems (cubism, futurism ,
suprematism etc .) ; inquiries into new materials, thus gain-
ing the awareness of the new methods of production;
making the character of the output dependent on the
employed material (yes indeed ; for even that used to be
secret sometimes) - all that discovered the whole mon-
struous forgery involved in the " pure art " slogans.
The awareness of the fact that the 19th century art had no
vital applications can be discerned in such slogans , how-
ever vague anyway , put forth by artists during the recent
decade or two, as "art out to the streets ", " art for all ".
Those slogans, the staple of the so-called new art , were
easier to avow than to make real. The consumers, de -
moralized by the prevailing practices, saw in it nothing
more indeed than an innocent pursuit for a " new thrill"; or
at best a reflection of some ferments agitating the sphere
of intelligentsia . Even worse , those slogans lost all their
101
 value by the fact that most artists apprehended them in this
way. This is witnessed by the brawls flaunted by futurists
in snobbish consumer circles. The essence of the conflict
has been dimmed and it had to remain incomprehensible
for a long time.
The lack of a social bondage was also responsible . An
artist , a writer, an intellectual in general (after his special
training that we have discussed) has got accustomed to
send out to the market the "pure art", "pure poetry", "pure
thought " and in general only the pure cultural commodi-
ties. But such cultural commodities served only a limited
number of buyers. The things could run more or less
smoothly until the prevailing conditions remained un-
changed. The war and the consequent economical crisis
ravaged the petty and middle urban bourgeoisie that had
been the main consumer of the current artistic production
(the grand bourgeoisie, the magnates of industry and the
landlords, most often made their collections of works of
old and dead artists of established repute). The market has
become considerably narrower.
A new audience has come to the fore and in time it
would make its presence more and more marked: the
proletariat. But this audience requires a definite product -
it has no use for the "pure" items ; it demands useful things.
Confused by the prevailing chaos, they fail to define their
demands with sufficient clarity, but they are told by their
instinct, what they need. These words must be emphasized:
they are told by their instinct. The molding of the con-
sciousness of the modern proletariat is a unique process
in history; its course is enormously difficult and compli-
cated by most varied influences. In the political field , the
strivings of the working class have, in a natural way, been
revealed in a definte manner because of the acute neces-
sity to oppose the ruling classes. In the domain of art, as
well as in many cultural matters, there has been no such
necessity . Hence , the chaos and the lack of any programme
here.
This is not only because the direct political struggle by ·
which almost all the forces of the working class are
absorbed, still is and will long be predominant. It must be
taken into consideration that the foremost working class
elements have grown up and been educated within the
bourgeois culture and they often believe the products of
this culture to be the uppermost phenomena that cannot
be overtaken . The criticism which is sharp and penetrating
when it is aimed against the bourgeois politics and econo-
102
my - wanes out and no longer apprehends the phenomena
appropriately, when it enters the field of bourgeois culture,
art , bourgeois ilterature. In a word, the revolutionary mind
in politics is often coupled with an absolute bourgeois-
mindedness in cultural matters. Hence the tendencies that
may be defined as a cultural labelling expansion . It means
that a typically bourgeois product gets a proletarian label
attached to it in form of a few slogans or some vague
summoning or tendency . The products of this kind,
especially if they are made for an order, have united in
them inherent bourgeois suggestions with a tawdry per-
formance. Quite earnestly, we can meet among the
proletarian activists several people in whose minds the
proletarian bent is inevitably linked with tawdriness.
To use a flowery style , we could define those phenomena
as the impure foam on the flood tide of proletariat. There-
fore, in those matters it is the instinct of the masses that
should be relied upon, rather than the usual sophisticated
theories ot this effect, smelling of the incurable bourgeois
mentality of their makers . The proletariat needs art not as
stucco gimkracks for Sunday evening, but art for the days
of the week. The separation that is a result of the parvenu
timidity of the bourgeoisie must perish: the separation of
production from the affairs of life and from cultural mat-
ters; the division which entails a hypocritical elevation to
the fetish status of all the expressions of human activity,
and at the same time a range of horrible lies, sticking over
everything, beginning from the exchange, the government
institutions and the parliamentary democracy, through to
the most trifling and common matters. This must perish,
as the typical lie of the capitalist world must have perished:
that of art for its own sake. It must perish not only in theory
- as hardly anybody still admits it - but in practice, too.
The artist has begun to think. He has become precisely
aware of the naught of his social position. The artist
breaks away from the framework of the present social
system; he desires and seeks for a practical aim, for a
practical application of his activity. He doesn't to be a vain
"ornament" of his society; he wants to cooperate in the
organization of life. The capitalist system would not and
cannot offer him all that. Even where it seems to open up
some perspectives of such work, they turn out to be
spurious. Even where the egoism of individuals, subjugat-
ing millions to its will, seems to loose its significance, it
always turns out to be a matter of some cowardly com-
promise - certain most exposed positions are given up,
 55 The collection of the a. r. group in the Museum of Art
in t.6dz, 1932 (works by : Arp, Van Doesburg, Vantongerloo,
Leger, Prampolini, Schwitters, Werkman, Baumeister a. o.)
56 Announcement of the group a. r., 1932, No 2, p. 1
to defend the next line even more firmly. Only a new
social system will enable us to use all the opportunities of
technological progress, suppressed or misused by those
who govern the world today, and it will make possible the
arising of new conditions for this human activity that we
call art.
1
Even a craftsman today , though he seems to be "inde-
pendent" , is a slave of his improved tools. Things have
gone so far that it is more expensive to make a piece of
furniture with rational simple shapes than to make a similar
piece with modernistic curvatures. Factories, producing
tools adjusted to the making of things in certain "taste",
sometimes make the most rational and humble forms
inattainable.
t:==:.=~~~
•1••1••••·
,.H
,,L
... , _ ...
-·-==-=~.;
,..... .J
....,.__ "a. r."
.......
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...,-~,,.,... _.,.. ..
-
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2
Sorel pointed out to the antichambre-servitory traits in
the French 18th century literature . But even after the Great
Revolution those symptoms came back with remarkable
strength. Balzac, the Homer of the bourgeoisie, gave vent
in his novels to an apparently queer, lackey - like cult of
aristocracy, outright debasing the quality of many of his
works. Curious symptoms can also be remarked in Comte's
philosophy in this respect.
3 Capitalism, in its own well understood interest, (text
distorted in print) expressions of social altruism and care
for the cultural requirements in the life of the broadest
masses. E. g., the new American bill on urban development
which is seen as the first step towards "urbanization of
cities " , is explained by the desire to increase the profits.
For the rooms on the lowest floors of skyscapers did not
yield such incomes as would satisfy the apetite of capi-
talists because of the complete darkness in them (caused
by the narrowness of the streets , out of proportion to the
multistoried buildings). Thus, it is simple interest rather
than humanitarian considerations that dictates to capital-
ism those moves which are illusions of healthy, modern
social tendencies in architecture.
4
The workers'towns-gardens and rationally planned sub-
urbs (in Britain, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Bel-
gium) arise under the pressure of the demands of prole-
tariat and they should be treated as its concrete achieve-
ments.
5
The same airs were taken by the mediaeval "master"
craftsman.
6
The ideological changes in the plastic arts and the proof
of the influence of bourgeois ideology on modern art will
be discussed in papers devoted to the cinema and advertis-
ing, as they represent this ideology in the best manner .
7
Among the abundant formal assumptions, the problems
of material were decisive.
An artist, considering the constructional properties of a
material, the variety of surface qualities of the same
material depending on the finish, the peculiar qualities of
a material as exposed to light, etc ., etc., became aware
that the character of the things he made should be
dependent on the applied material. The problem of the
material (not treated in a fetishlike manner by cubists or
suprematists) put forth the problem of the utilitarian values
of a work of art which became the pivotal point for a part
of modern artists.
103
 57 Announcement of the group a. r., 1932, No 2, p. 2

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Wfadysfaw Strzeminski, "Object and Space" The modern designing of useful objects is founded on
abstract art.
("Przedmiod i przestrzen), Wiek XX, 1928, No 21. Direct realism in the shaping of each thing according to its
separate laws has been opposed against imitative realism .
The paper is translated with minor abbreviations. It is one Not the sticking of ornaments on ready objects, but the
of the first statements by Strzeminski after the publication shaping of an object accord ing with the logic of its destina-
of his theory of unism. The author abandoned his sole tion and according with the logic of the laws of material
concern for painting and tried to transfer his cons idera- (so called "truth of the material"). We know that we can
tions to the other forms of artistic activity, especially to produce an innumerable amount of any shapes we wish,
industrial design. The principles here exposed would be but among those many shapes only a few can be found in
supplemented and realized in the programme of study in which their inner shape would be an expression of the
a school of industrial design, managed by the artist (see structure of the material. The hardness , sharpness and
below, " Fashion as Architecture " ). transparency of glass require different shapes to be
revealed than e.g. cast iron or wood ( ... ). A beautiful
Wtadystaw Strzeminski shape is not an " ornate" one, but an organic shape,
Object and Space inseparably united with the material.
Such rehabilitation of the material appearing in all its
The direction in the plastic arts which we call "utilitaria- sincerity and freed from ornaments that veil up its essence
nism " has pased through two phases in its historical has been a result of the third phase of cubism (textural
development. The general significance of the problem cubism of the years 1912-1916). Works of such sculptors
consists in the striving to give useful objects a shape as Boccioni, Archipenko and Tatlin, by making the truth of
compatible with contemporary aesthetics , and at the same the material visible, offered a theoretical background for
time fitting to the contemporary needs of life and level of the experiments of constructivists carried out between
technology . The final end is the creating of the " style of the 1919 and 1924.
epoch" . The first period was marked mainly by a search for
The focal idea of the first period was : to derive the shape aesthetics of pure material in their open bareness, not
of an object from the qualities of the material. In conse- covered or ornated with anything, as well as for a relation
quence , a new form of realism arose , basically different from between a material and the shapes derived from it.
the realism that had bee prevailing in art. The old realism The second period which is still being continued sets forth
was reproductive: its aim was to attain a similarity of a chiefly constructional tasks - the problems of a system of
work of art to any object whatever , existing beyond the connecting of particular shapes. For indeed, the aesthetics
work; we can also call it indirect realism , for a work of art of the truth of the materials and a rejection of imitative
(and every useful object can be a work of art) gained its realism determine the solution only in negative terms,
value not by itself , but only inasmuch as it approached in cleaning the field and introducing properly justified shapes.
its shape some object to which it was alien . This realism However, offering the building material, they do not thereby
lacked a system of molding the form. It could not set forth offer the ways of connecting of the particular shapes.
its position towards the form of the surrounding objects - A true uniformity is always a result of a system. Arbitrari-
it could only reproduce them. This helplessness brought ness courd exist in imitative realism , where it made no
about a marked lack of interest in the creative molding of difference, what object would be copied as an ornament
the form of an object, and at the same time an unimpeded of a ready product. Now, rejecting all arbitrariness in orna-
drive to ornate the ready products.( . .. ) ments, we have to derive the aesthetics of an object out of
In order to pass to the direct molding of form itself, art had its innate qualities: its size, shape, material and type of
to absorb the achievements of cubism and of abstract art finish of the material (the texture) . It is self-evident that
deriving from it. It is only with such a store of knowledge it is only an interdependence or a system that can warrant
on the general principles of molding of all form in general the uniformity of the connection of these elements.
that the designing of useful objects can be started at all. We can discern two different systems :

104
 ; ~(
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n
b
0
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p
d
q
e
,
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s
g h
1) a system of contrasts;
2) a system of computation of a space phenomenon .
The first system, derived from textural cubism, consists in
the observation that the qualities of each shape are the
most conspicuous when it is placed beside a contrasting
shape. We are more aware of the length and thinness of a
piece of wire, when we place it beside a thick and short
shape( .. .). The effects of such a system can be seen in the
Bauhaus in Dessau - a school devoted to the elaboration
of the means of modern design of useful objects. Another
system , initiated by the Dutch group of "De Stijl " and
developed by the Polish group "Praesens", starts from the
assumption that every object is a part of the space. Hence
the requirement of spatiality of each thing , i.e . its merging
with the surrounding space. The division of each object
is at the same time a division of the space; the direction
of each shape is at the same time a spatial direction. Within
this approach , the material is a secondary element: it is the
space which is the source of the form. Every shape is an
optical hit of a certain strength; the sequence of consecu-
tive hits constitutes a plastic rhythm. To attain a uniform
rhythm, we must reduce it to a uniform numerical relation ,
to calculate the rhythm by a mathematical formula. The
application of a uniform calculated rhythm does not yield
such an intensity of form as the system of contrasts, but it
warrants a greater degree of clarity .
In the system of computation of spatial phenomena , the
main task is a construction of the space as a whole and
building an object into it as a part of such whole. The
principle of the truth of the materials is of relatively minor
importance here, defining only the materials for the
particular shapes.
~ I J;
II r\
1 J \J
~
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J k I t
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m
z
Wladyslaw Strzeminski, Szymon Syrkus,
"The Present in Architecture and Painting"
("Terazniejszosc w architekturze i malarstwie " )
Przeglqd Artystyczny 1928, No 4.
The present paper by the two authors is one of the few
traces of the close collaboration of Strzeminski with the
initiator of the "Praesens" group , Syrkus. Such collabora-
tion was possible in the early period of the activity of the
group, when the approach to modern architecture and to
the functions of painting were formulated in rather general
though remarkable terms ; however , the divergencies bet-
ween the theory of functionalism in architecture by Syrkus
and the utopian conception of architectural unism of
Strzeminski would in the next years lead the two men in
opposite directions.
Wtadystaw Strzeminski, Szymon Syrkus
The Present in Architecture and Painting
The plastic art strives to get rid of alien sediments in it.
The plastic art is so powerful in itself that it does not need
any help from literature, history, mysticism , " symbolism "
or " moods" . The modern plastic art also does not resort
to the nuisance of justifying its doings by a similarity to
nature .
The first postulate of the modern plastic art : to develop its
own, and peculiar to it only, technical means to the utmost
precision and perfection. The language of the plastic art is
its form : colour in space. Colour can be arranged either on
a flat surface or in a three-dimensional space. Hence, the
classification into the flat plastic art - the arrangement of
definite shapes on a plane (painting) and the spatial plastic
art (sculpture and architecture). The plastic art expresses
itself by colour arranged in space, without looking for any
help whatever : it expresses what no other art can express :
it produces plastic phenomena, standing in the range of the
other phenomena in the universe as completely separate
things, similar to themselves only and justified by them-
selves .
Thefirst principleofthemodern plastic art: " abstractness ".
Thus, the modern art does not imitate anything; it does
not pretend that a picture has the depth: it does not
talk by means of dynamism about something that happens
outside and it does not shift the emphasis towards the
105
 ,,::-
..:..n,.J
¢].··
phenomena of the outer world. It is determined that a
picture is not an imitation of any activity: it throws away
dynamism for good and all as an illusory sign of activity;
it stresses that a picture is a flat thing; that the task of
painting consists in such an arrangement of shapes as to
make them into a uniform aggregate of elements fastened
together.
A modern painting is the more perfect, the more clearly it
displays its flatness; the better are its shapes connected
with each other and united with the plane of the picture;
the more, in the end, is it isolated from the outer world
within the limits of its frame . A picture is a rectangular
world, flat, self-sufficient within its limits, isolated from
everything that is going on beyond its frame.
The frame is the limit of a painting. Architecture and sculp-
ture have no frames. An imposing of limits upon a work of
spatial plastic art is incompatible with its assumptions.
What becomes spatial plastic art, is the space, without any
natural frontiers , unlimited by anything . A work of sculp-
tural or architectonic art, placed in unlimited space, ought
to be united with it as its inseparable part.
In modern sculpture there is no room for dynamism. A
shape that makes its flight through space must become
a closed solid, integral and isolated from the rest of the
space so as to dart through it with a greater ease, while
what modern plastic art pursues is, in the opposite , a union
of a sculpture with the space, and to attain this end, it
splits up the solid. Fragments of space penetrating the
consciously split up solid are interconnected with each
other and at the same time they are tightly linked to the
space as a whole. The breaking of the shape of a solid is
connected with its breaking as to the colour, for a uniform
shade, emphasizing the uniformity of a solid, cannot, quite
naturally , befit a sculptural form . Colour introduced into
sculpture in all its fullness and richness saturates it with
space , making up a spatio-temporal rhythm of coloured
shapes, shifting our attention from one to another with
varying intensity dependent on the force of the shape and
colour. A spatial sculpture is an arrangement of infinitely
reflected colours in space.
Of all the plastic arts, architecture is the most closely
related to human life, conceived not as a physiological
function, but as a process of the vitalistic rhythm, as the
composition of life. Like a spatial sculpture, a work of
architecture is in un ion with the space - it can be said to
catch the space which is beyond it, while it imposes definite
rnn
functions or destinations upon the part of the space by
which it is penetrated. The functional ism of the space
penetrating a piece of architecture is a kind of a musical
score. In each house, during the time which is assigned to
it, everyday life is played according to this score . The
modern composition of a building is based upon a new
apprehension of space in architecture.
Architecture of the past generations closed the space in
masses . During history, mass was conceived in architec-
ture in the following way : in classicism - masses are put
besides or upon each other, with lighter upon heavier ones
etc. Cubism - attempts to connect masses by their mutual
penetration. Constructivism - heavier masses are put upon
lighter ones . The problem of form is neglected in favour
of purelytechnical issues. Hypertrophy of technology leads
architecture astray from its way; it is as detrimental as the
hpertrophy of form. None of these deviations is the proper
way of the new architecture. Suprematism - weighs the
masses as to their relative gravity. Purism - what it con-
nects, are no longer the masses but the directions of walls.
The most recent architectonic laws do not juxtapose or
interconnect the solids. They crush mass once and for
all. Modern technology offers an architect the opportunity
to set in motion, or even partly to eliminate, some of the
elements making up a mass, or the opportunity to open it
up to the space. An interior, opened up due to such a
partial setting in motion or elimination of its borders,
becomes connected with the rest of the space, and be-
cause of functionalization it assumes architectonic merits .
The cube ceases to be there. The constant element are the
perpendiculars in which the habitation machines are focus-
ed. The perpendiculars are the pivotal points in a closed
chain of a spatial architectonic composition. The new
systems of architectural forms make use of modern tech-
nology which , however , serves them not only to utili-
tarian and constructivist aims , but helps them to provide
the framework in which the courage of abstract creation
can be embodied. The difference between the new archi-
tecture in which mass wanes out and the old massive
architecture will be perhaps as radical as the difference
between the Gothic and the Classicism.
 -- ff
OBLICZENIA
RYTM Ui
.a.r~
Katarzyna Kobro, Wtadystaw Strzeminski. "Composition
Space; Calculations of a Spatio-Temporal Rhythm"
(Kompozycja przestrzeni, obliczenia rytmu czasoprzestr-
zennego), t.6dz 1931.
The book was published as the second volume of the "a . r.
Library". An original graphic setting was elaborated by
Strzeminski. The text was printed on 79 pages and an
insert with 45 illustrations, in part discussed by the authors
and exemplifying the exposition . We present here three
fragments of the book, containing examples of detailed
solutions and of final conclusions. The work on the comp-
osition of space is a transposition of the unistic prin-
ciples on the ground of a work of sculpture (and, in a
lesser degree, of architecture) and offers a definition of its
uniformity . At the same time it offers the ground for the
cognition of the structure of Strzeminski's paintings called
by him "Architectonic compositions" and Kobro's sculp-
tures " Spatial compositions". We also find here a precise
formulation of the principle of "spatio-temporal rhythms",
present in Strzeminski's theories since the middle twenties.
Katarzyna Kobro, Wtadystaw Strzeminski
Composition of Space
Unism in painting tends to the flat optical unity, closed in
itself and indifferent to its environment. A unistic sculpture
aims at the unity of the sculpture with the surrounding
space, a spatial unity. The general assumption of unism is
the unity of a work of art with the place in which it arises,
or with the natural conditions that had already existed
before the work of art was made. The terrain on which a
painting arises, is the flat surface of the canvas and the
square of the sides of the picture . It is to this plane , limited,
flat and closed, isolated from its environment, that the
shapes in the picture must be adjusted and brought right
to the organic unity that would unite the shapes in the
picture with its plane and borders, constituting a flat visual
unity , cut off from the environment by the sides of the
picture . The visual unity reaches the sides of the picture
and it stops there. This kind of organic unity becomes
comprehensible for us, when we take into account that the
factors that determine it are: the flat surface and the clear
limits which cannot be trespassed. This entails the flatness
of the uniform visual phenomenon and its uniformity ex-
tending up to the borders of the picture.
h ....
,-- ....
,.J.1.,.
....
,..,
wypadku h) 1pootrzegamy zjawilko, charaktery,tycznie
okreiJ.j.ce ten 1poa6b:
h: I =n
h : h,= n czyti I= h
• tego wynib, ie prOlloqt h 1 I jell kwadratem. Czyli:
-T.._..._
-
-
-
DmLI Ml
.,._ WYIIWIU PUSZCZVZIIY IIZU•
NA DWA -\'OIUITY, Z IITOIIYCH ~
0 ile jednak przeprowadzamy podzial
drusiego I wymiuow glownych, L zn. I - kwadrat gillie,
natomiut 1i,; zjawia proatoqt podobny do prOlloqta
podztawowego .
of
-
72 h:l( =h,)=1:1,=n
In sculpture we have no such limits. Nature itself defines
the border of a picture as its natural limit, but it offers no
natural borders for a piece of sculpture. It has no natural
limits at all, and this implies the requirement of its connec-
tion with the whole infinite space. A unity of what has
arisen with what had been prior to the work of art is the
main postulate of unism which entails the character of the
spatial unity in sculpture. A work of sculpture, arising in
space unlimited by any frontiers, should make up a unity
with the infinity of the space. Any closure of a sculpture,
any opposition between it and the space, strips it of its
organic character of the uniformity of a spatial phenomenon
by breaking off their natural connection and isolating the
sculpture .
The optical unity, by bringing together its constituent
elements, separates them from the space. Sculptural unism
opposes against this type of unity - a unity of a spatial
phenomenon which is open to the space and which makes
a piece of sculpture into an organic part of the space. The
colour gamut, closing a sculpture in the unity of its shade,
constitutes an optical unity isolating the sculpture from the
space. To retain the spatial unity, the gamut should be
avoided and such colours should be used which give no
gamut and at the same time possess the greatest variety
of energy inherent in them. Such colours are: red, blue and
yellow, as well as black and white. Beside those active
colours, a neutral hue of a disappearance of the colour
energy can be applied : grey or silver. All the other colours,
being less differentiated with respect to the energy in-
herent in them, always make up a colour gamut in their
connections .
The device which gives uniformity to a piece of sculpture
without closing it up, is the spatio-temporal calculated
rhythm. By rhythm we mean a regular sequence of spatial
shapes. The rhythm of a unistic sculpture is a complex
rhythm of spatial shapes and of coloured planes. A regula-
·tion of their sequence consists in reducing the mutual
relationships of the consecutive shapes to the common
numerical formula. Reducing the problem to the numerical
formula of the relationships of consecutive sizes, we make
the rhythm an open one, capable of growth in both direc-
tions: towards the greater and towards the smaller shapes.
This peculiar rhythm of unism, the open rhythm, constitutes
the linkage of shapes, at the same time linking them to the
space. A rhythm Of shapes connected by a common
numerical formula can grow in any direction; it can add
107
 -1, , __ _
-.....-.
,.~.,.,
...
-
=:::r.
Przeprowadui11c jednalc podzial drusi wymiaru h, .... :
camy znowu do kwadratu, wytworzooero przez drusi ,
podzial poziomy • pierwuym podzialem p;-w~ •
Spo.trzegamy tedy kolejnooc nut,;pui'lcych po oobie
kwadratow i prostoqtow, podobaych do _pr~
podotawowego . Nul,;puMCCpo oobie poclzulyro.-
imienne lwOl"Z'I kwadraty, podzjaly w ~ 75
dai'Iprostoqty poclobne .
new extensions to the existing ones, not contained by the
work . These new shapes, being a logical cnosequence of
the series of already existing shapes and its continuation ,
must be placed in the space outside of the sculpture. Thus ,
an open rhythm starting from the sculpture goes out to the
space and relates it to the work.
The unity of a sculpture in itself and its inherent harmony
as a work of art cannot be attained by the employment of
any opposition between it and the space, strips it of its
plastic means only. Senepture is the art of space. However,
as it follows from what has been said , sculpture is not a
wholly plastic phenomenon, for it assumes a coexistence
of space and t ime in it, the two elements that are united in
the concept of motion , which is a synthetic , spatio-temporal
concept.
The unlimited number of projected planes can be united
only in the spatio-temporal concept of rhythm as an
ordered motion, subject to strict and clear laws. No plastic
means can establish a connection between an infinite
number of projected planes seen from infinite number of
sides, for those means are unable to fill the pauses
containing time. Optics is insufficient. Only a rhythm which
is a result of spatial changes occuring in time can be the
unifying factor.
It is the property of sight that it can see exactly one shape
at a single moment. After this shape has been seen , a shift
is made to another , and in this way all the shapes which
make up for a work of art are seen one after another.
Depending on the amount of energy inherent in them ,
these shapes work with more or less strength and they
make up series of hits of various intensity, arranged in a
time sequence. This is the rhythm of the simples type -
the spatio-temporal rhythm of a single projected plane.
Analysing this rhythm, we must find out its spatio-temporal
character . A division of a work of art into parts , separating
them out of the work , brings about their opposing against
each other which ,'though it concerns purely spatial pheno-
mena, still occurs in time. This most simple rhythm , the
rhythm of a single plane, is a starting point allowing to
pass to the building of a rhythm of a whole work of art and
of all its sides , for its spatio-temporality is quite peculiar
in its character, being the most convenient transition from
spatial phenomena to the phenomenon of time. Time is not
directly given in it. The whole of what we perceive on a
single projected plane is indeed a purely spatial pheno -
menon , a plastic one. The element of time becomes
108
significant only when the eyes are set in motion. The
character of the spatio-temporality of a single projected
plane can be defined as potential , as a rhythm having the
element of time latent in it. It is only for the different
projected planes that the element of time becomes signifi-
cant in a direct manner, appearing clearly as the pauses
dividing a work of art into a series of projected planes split
from each other. It is necessary to understand the potential
character of the rhythm of a single projected plane, for
only when we have grasped it, we can build up a transition
from dimensional and spatial phenomena to something as
specific as the uniform spat io-temporal rhythm. Time is
only potentially inherent within a single plane. In a work of
threedimensional art , in appears in an open manner as a
result of the beholding motion around the work of art. The
main task is: to build up a transition from individual shapes
which are purely spatial and nontemporal, through the
potential rhythm, up to the rhythm of the whole work of art
or to the overt rhythm which unites the whole work into a
single spatio-temporal unity.
This entails, as the basic condition: a one-dimensionality
of the potential and of the overt rhythm , i. e. the same
numerical formula for the rhythm of the projected plane
and of the whole work of art. Thus , the rhythm of the whole
work is the result of the potential rhythms of the several
projected planes which have a common formula with it.
Or: the uniformity of the spatio-temporal rhythm through-
out the whole work of art can be attained, provided that
all the potential rhythms of all the projected planes have
the same numerical formula .
We can establish the following 3 periods anterior to the
building of a uniform spatio-temporal rhythm connecting
the several mutually independent shapes, reducing them
to a uniform system and making up an interdependent
scale of increases and falls of energy inherent in these
shapes , and thus making these shapes into a complete
unity of the spatio -temporal phenomenon .
The 1st period: A uniform potential rhythm within a single
projected plane should be established . This is attained
by commensurability of all the shapes; which means that
the relationships between all of them should be expressed
in the same numerica l formula. In this way we pass from
such or another size of the shapes , from their extensions,
from a measurable and purely spatial phenomenon, to a
potential rhythm.
 ;. a,
en
·:!,
"'
~
:I!
w
N
...
0::
en
3i
...
oi
The 2nd period: After establishing the same numerical
formula for the relationships of all the shapes within the
limits of a single projected plane, the same numerical
formula must be extended upon all the other projected
planes. Each plane is different from the former ones and
the disposition of shapes on it is different , but since its
rhythm has been built according to the same numerical
formula, therefore the consequent result is the resonance
of all the potential rhythms.
The 3rd period : We have to pass from the numerical formula
common for all the potential rhythms to the sequence of
the projected planes. It is only now that we make the
transition from the potential rhythms to the higher order
rhythm - to the spatio-temporal one which is constituted
by the sequence of the consecutive potential rhythms in-
herant in the several projected planes. This sequence of
the projected planes ought to be constructed according
with the same numerical formula, according to which each
of the projected planes and all of them together have been
constructed . If we succeed to embody the same numerical
formula into all the parts which constitute the work of art,
we shall attain a wholly uniform spatio-temporal rhythm .
The variety of shapes and sizes does not hamper the uni-
formity of the rhythm, for all the arising contrasts are an
effect of the common definition of all the shapes by a
common numerical formula n, constituting the essential
foundation and the essential description of the spatio-
temporal rhythm of the work of art.
The offered way of conduct concerns only the size of the
shapes and their arrangement , but it says nothing about
the shapes themselves. This is up to the artist who knows
himself, what shapes he needs . But the exact magnitude
of such shapes, the precise definition of their places, their
connections so as to have them make a uniform spatio-
temporal rhythm and a construction of a uniform work of
art rather than of some fragments - all this can be attained
only by an application of a uniform numerical formula
comprising the relationships of the shapes.
Wtadystaw Strzeminski, "The Principles of
New Architecture"
(Zasady nowej architektury), Linia 1931, No 3.
This paper by Strzemiriski, presented here in unabridged
form, was written after his break with the "Praesens"
group and it clearly marked that the artist abandoned the
functionalist theories in architecture in favour of his own
idea of " architectonization" of space as a pattern of ab-
stract rhythms.
Wfadysfaw Strzemiriski
The Principles of New Architecture
1. The elements of architecture are :
a) places where a man stops during any activity;
b) motion when he passes from one activity to another.
2. The aim of architecture is an organization of the rhythm
of consecutive motions and stops, and thereby the forming
of the whole of life.
3. The final end of architecture is not the building of con-
venient houses ; it is also not the blowing up of abstract
sculptures and calling them exhibition pavilions. Its aim
is: to be a regulator of the rhythm of social and individual
life.
4. The source of harmony of a rhythm is a measure entailed
by number. The relations of divisions of the space and
shapes must be arranged according to a uniform numerical
formula.
5. The spatial character of such rhythm requires spatial
architecture, related with the whole space, inner and outer,
com ing in and going out into the space.
6. Spatial architecture is the composition of space divisions
in the three dimensions . As it develops, the rhythm of divi-
sions goes beyond the given complex of buildings and
becomes connected with another one. The extent and
direction of the divisions, the energy of colour and light ,
the energy or statics of the texture (as in the installations)
are the coeficients of that rhythm , making it more dynamic
or impeding it.
7. This architecture , initiating the rhythm of modern life,
should be opposed against the architecture of compromise
by Corbusier and his epigones (the majority of new Ger-
man architects , Swiss architects , those from the "Praesens "
group and others), because :
109
a) instead of a uniform architectonic conception, they set
forth several unrelated tricks and solutions;
b) due to the lack of a uniform architectonic conception,
the utilitarian , visual and constructional factors remain
unrelated. Hence, instead of the composition of rhythm, we
have so frequently the composing of " beautiful corners"
that do not proceed from anything (Corbusier) .
c) the neglecting of the modern principle of the division of
functions in a building construction (e. g ., a wall cannot
perform the functions of a girder and of a fill-in at the same
time) . This causes the redundant mass of the walls and
the composing of a solid instead of a composition linked
with the space.
d) instead of a composition of the space , they fit the holes
of windows and doors into the squares of walls.
e) the handling of a straight line, the flat roof and unbroken
stripes of standard windows are not yet equivalent to
modern architecture.
110
(Wtadystaw Strzeminski?) "Fashion as Architecture"
(Architektonizm mody). Architekturq i Budownictwo, 1931,
No 11.
The paper, reprinted in its complete form , was not signed,
but it seems to have been written either on Strzeminski's
suggestion, or by the artist himself. The curriculum of the
Industrial School at Koluszki summarized in it is the only
trace of the cycle of classes realized by Strzeminski and
Kobro in the 1930/ 31 school year. Their later efforts to
continue this kind of teaching and to move the school to
t.6di: failed. In the curriculum Strzeminski laid stress, in
accordance with his theoretical attitude, upon the studies
of form, devoting relatively little space to the making of an
object as a final effect of the experiments.
Fashion as Architecture
Everybody knows the works of the Bauhaus. However, little
is known about an analogous school, the Industrial School
at Koluszki active for a few years. Owing to the artistic
management by the eminent theorist and artist Wtadystaw
Strzeminski and Mrs Katarzyna Kobro, the results attained
there surpass those of the Bauhaus, for they are based on
a strict study of modern form which has found its basis in
a curriculum strictly elaborated by us. As this is the first
effort of this kind in this country, we are putting forth this
curriculum .
Course I: 1st phase - arrangement of lines on a plane;
2 - arrangement of planes; 3 - composition of divisions of
a plane; 4 - a monogram made of geometrical elements of
letters ; 5 - dynamics, energy, intensity and value of
colour; 6 - an architectural composition of the given plane
(purism) and architectonization of this composition de-
pending on the plane; 7 - painterly texture; 8 - objective
texture of materials (collage); 9 - texture modelled as
reshaping of the material.
Courses II and Ill: (designing and carrying out of useful
objects) - 1 - an analysis of forms of objects according
with analytical cubism of the 1909-1912 period ; 2 - an
analysis of the human figure according with the same prin-
ciples; 3 - an analysis of the human figure, aiming at the
revealing of the architectonic lines of the construction of
its forms ; 4 - a composition of a dress on the revealed
architectonic lines (by composing a dress into the archi-
Katarzyna Kobro, Project for a Functional Nursery School,
c.1932
tectonic lines of a figure, a composition is obtained in
which the figure is connected with the dress by a common
architectonic rhythm).
In this way the school succeeded to break the prevailing
schema of "ornamentation". It created a type of modern
fashions and objects of daily use , architectonically related
to the modern interior.
A Communication of the "a. r." group; 1932.
The statement reprinted here in fragments was not signed ,
but its authorship can be assigned to W. Strzeminski.
Because of the extensive abridgments, the peculiar typo-
graphical setting , integrally composing all the pages, could
not be retained. The content of the fragments points to
the remarkable attitude of the artist during the nineteen-
thirties , with a greater stress upon the social postulates
of a modern artistic utterance .
" a. r." 2
(.. .) Modern art, putting forth the problems of form, con-
struction, exactitude, purposefulness, economy, organiza-
tion , sublimates the feelings which are most tightly related
to production . Thus , the social influence of art is indirect:
by sublimat ing certain affective and volitional attitudes , it
penetrates from leisure to work of man , into the whole
scope of human life .
The aim of artistic creation is not an expression of one's
individuality , but an objective contribution to the new art -
artistic prob lems , up to now intuitively guessed by artists,
ought to be solved by scientific research and mutual con-
trol of the attained results . (.. .) It is determined by the
logic of development of art in our times that modern art
should be supported by an organization for research,
exper imenting and testing of hypotheses . ( . . .) The "con-
templative" attitude towards a work of visual art as some-
thing that transposes a certain section of reality , is an
anachronism from the epoch of handicraft.
Not an imitating and repeating of fragments of life, but a
creative experiment and inventing of form, fecundating
the opportunities of daily life - this is the aim of modern
paint ing and sculpture .
Wtadystaw Strzeminski, "Functional Printing"
(Druk funkcjonalny), Grafika 1933, No 2.
The integral text is reprinted here, and the typographical
arrangement is retained. Strzeminski's statement on func-
tional print brings together his loose remarks on the sub-
ject published since 1930 in a review of Tschichold's book
and repeated in communications of the "a . r." group . It is
also a theoretical generalization of the author's graphical
endeavours as he has elaborated typographically several
poems by J. Przybos , T. Peiper and J. Brz~kowski, as well
as a summing up of his lectures in the vocational school
for printers in l6dz. The main ideas of the paper were re-
peated in a separate publication entitled " Functional Print"
(l6dz 1935) and in the Catalogue of the IVth Exhibition of
the Advertising Graphic Artists Circle (Warszawa 1936).
Wtadystaw Strzeminski
Functional Printing
Until now , the standard models of printing have been the
Renaissance prints . In this printing , the form is based on
weak emphases:
a) a general uniform grey glimmer of the printed surface
b) endings of chapters or even of particular pages by a
gradually narrowing triangle
c) equal intensity of the print shade in lettering and vignette
(substituting the triangle of a purely typographical ending
of a chapter or page)
d) symmetry of the composition, arranged along the verti-
cal axis
e) identical cut of types to make the visual impressions
uniform and more calm.
This type of printing has been continued ever since the
beginnings of Italian Renaissance print ing up to the
present times. It was subject to certain, indeed minor ,
modifications during the Baroque epoch ; it returned to its
original model during the Rococo, from which it eventually
developed and flourished as Romantic printing of the first
decades of the 19th century. Modernist printing could not
overcome its canons and it got lost in the superfluity of
ornamentation. Among all the modernist graphic artists,
only in Stanistaw Wyspianski (as the designer of the
magazine ".Z:ycie" ) we can observe conscious attempts at
111

contrasting compositions of the unprinted paper and of the
waving and entangled line of the vignette.
The Renaissance printing (and all its derivates) took as
its starting point the work of a draftsman, both in the
shapes of the too much drawn letters in which the move-
ment of a pencil or pen can be traced (the typical drawing
of the roman type), in the texture, also too much "drawn"
in its uniform greyness of strokes, and in the static com-
position of rectangles and triangles filled in with print.
This is why such drawn texture of print requires a vignette,
inserts and other graphic ornaments as its necessary
supplementation.
This kind of printing which must be considered as belong-
ing to an already past epoch , might be called ornamental
printing .
The new epoch could begin when the enormous changes
that occured both in economics and in present day plastic
arts made possible the appearance of a new kind of print
that may be called functional. The characterof Renaissance
print (with its derivates) resulted from the form of drawing,
assumed beforehand, into which print was forced. In
present day printing, form is a function of contents. The
contents entails the form.
The objective is no longer ornate and fancy printing, but
businesslike purposefulness of easily readable everyday
print (a poster , placard , book cover, advertisement , letter-
head , visiting card etc .). The sequence of activities at de-
signing and composing a print becomes reversed. Former-
ly, an ideal compositor was on who united his professional
know-how with the skill of a plastic artist. This is not
enough now. A typesetter must have , besides a literary
and stylistic education, so as to understand exactly the
meanings and niceties of every word in a text and to be
able to recompose the text as to its style.
An exact understanding of the text implies its division into
its units of meaning . A text which is poorly arranged (in the
literary sense) yields a clumsy and entangled graphic
composition. It must be so elaborated stylistically , by so
shifting and rearranging its particular parts, as to give a
single determined direction to the course of a sentence
and a clear division into the groups of meaning. The
printer 's setting should correspond to the literary structure .
As any interpretation of a literary work, the composition of
a print is by no means the only graphic solution. The result
depends on which parts of the text we want to emphasize ,
and which ones we consider as secondary and negligible.
112
60 Karol Hiller , t6dz, c. 1930
When different elements of the text are emphasized, the
graphic composition will look differently.
Obviously, graphic ornaments of all kind blur the text as
they tend to distract attention , and thus they should be
absolutely eliminated. Order is the greatest economy of
readability.
After the text is divided into the groups of meaning , each
group has to be emphasized by selecting a proper cut and
size of type for it. For printing to be distinct , it should not
contain more than 5 or less than 3 of such groups. If a
composition contains more than 5 groups, the graphic
elaboration becomes an extremely difficult task.
Modern painting, and especially its objectless directions,
has exerted a notable influence upon the outlook of con-
temporary printing. Frequently, however, what we observe
is not the essential understanding of the foundations of the
given artistic direction, but an automatic transferring of the
shapes employed in it. But the different materials (type and
paper instead of paints), the length of each word and of
their whole set, and finally the relationship of the graphic
shape of a print with the contents of words expressed by
that shape - all this causes that even if the basic ideal
may be the same, the actual effects cannot be so.
As it is necessary to sort out graphically each of the groups
of contents, resort is made to a system of contrasts which
constitutes the common background of most directions
of modern plastic arts , with each of them approaching
the issue from a different angle. For example: the main
objective of neoplasticism is a division of the plane of
composition and the relationship of proportions .
The several groups of the text are arranged according
with the contrasting divisions of the plane of the printed
sheet. The sequence of the black groups of types of various
sizes and strength and the contrast of their distances
produce a peculiar rhtyhm of the elements that cannot be
foreseen in advance.
Evidently, the previously unfailing principle of a uniform
cut of types throughout the whole print cannot remain
valid. It falls down both under the impact of utilitarian
requirements (i.e., of the functional character of the partic-
ular parts) and because of the change of artistic standards.
In the print that was subject to a schematic form assumed
in advance and imposed upon it (as it was the case in
Renaissance printing), it was not necessary to sort the
particular parts out of the whole, but rather reversely , to
arrange the print in prearranged molds.
 , - '"r
61 Cover of the magazine "Forma " , 1934, No 2

CZASOPISMO
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ROZMOWY NA WYSTAWIE
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In functional printing , each of the groups of the text should Wladyslaw Strzemir'iski, Letters to Julian Przybos,
cooperate with and express the contents contained in it. 1929-1936.
It is by the use of various kinds and sizes of type that the
emotional load of the contents can be brought into relief . There are extant 64 letters by W. Strzeminski to his friend,
On the other hand, cubism has sharpened our sensitivity the poet Julian Przybos.Only a few of them have been pub-
to the effects of texture. The surface of a print is now for lished. The short fragments reprinted here bring, besides
us not only a printed surface but a certain density of the some detailed remarks concerning the artist's work on
colour of the ink, attained by the shape and size of the the graphical elaboration of Przybos poems, also general
types, by their thickness and relative distance. By con- statements on architecture in the context of the discussion
trasting the intensity of the colour of the ink in the partic- with functionalists, some considerations on the general
ular groups of the text we can achieve a greater tension character of modern art, and remarks about the Interna-
of form. tional Modern Art Collection which, as a deposit of the
Also the problem of an illustration in the text arises. "a. r." group, became the germ of the present collection
Similarly as the print, an illustration is a certain variety of contemporary art in the l6dz Museum .
and intensity of colour of the ink . Depending on its charac-
ter, an illustration is composed of some or other darker Letters to Julian Przybos
and brighter shapes. According with the general system of
contrasts, the task consists in a thorough analysis of the (27th June , 1929)
shapes, blots and dots which make up an illustration and . . . The poems are so perfect that I have never believed that
in a proper contrasting of the types of the caption with the you could make such a great leap forward. I made a graphic
shape of the illustration , both with respect to the energy arrangement for "Gmachy" and "Zm~czenia"; I'll send
with which the colour hits and with respect to the size and you the proofs as soon as they are ready. In the graphic
shape of the types. arrangement I attempted to cooperate with the construc-
Only a half-tone black made from a photograph can be tion of the poems by different characters of the letter-
properly contrasted with print. It opposes against the sharp ing and by vertical and horizontal lines . The whole
and distinct shapes of types its soft grey shades ; in conse- seems to me to be more interesting than the Seuphor-
quence, a type placed next to such a block is clearly dis- Mondrian thing in "L'Art Contemporain ". Unfortunately, I
cernible from it. Also utilitarian considerations , cost etc. could not build up the "20 kg" . All my trials gave confused
provide arguments in favour of giving up the half tone results. From my graphic failures I infer that apparently
blocks , and even more the line engravings , made from there are deficiencies in the uniformity of the structure.
hand drawings. The style of modernity does not come from For that reason I'm sending you back the poem on the
aesthetics alone . Its foundation is deeper, and whatever condition that you 'll work on it some more towards a
we initiate in one domain, is immediately confirmed in an- greater uniformity and a more compact structure, so that
other, sometimes apparently very remote one. it reaches me again in time for the first issue. It is quite
remarkable, how your present poems are similar to my
recent pictures based on size relationships. I've never
believed that we can turn out so similar things without
communicating with each other.
Perhaps I may be wrong as to the "20 kg" - if I am, please
return it immediately for print : but I'm addicted to thinking
with my eyes, and if I can't hit upon some visual pattern,
I feel something out of line( ... ).

(24th June, 1930)

... New form results from the change of the building
material; the new building material yields a new building

113

construction. The new construction makes a new form
possible. The new construction is a post and bar of rein-
forced concrete, heaving the whole weight of a building
and relieving the walls from it , so that the walls should not
be filled in ; they can be absent at all, which makes a spatial
solution possible (in opposition to the former solid solu-
tions , with holes for the windows) : this permits for de-
signing a building as a pattern of rhythms of human
motions , a spatio-temporal rhythm. Out of real elements
(not an adulterate construction) , trails of motions can
be put in array , carrying a man inside and outside
(.. .) Peiper doesn 't like the arrangement of " Sponad " -
this can be well understood. He is a cub ist in poetry , like
Juan Gris in painting , or like Braque - and this is a state of
splendid flourish of beauty of form , but of insufficiently
ordered construction (. .. ) With the cubists , the economy
of construction finds its expression in geometrization of
shapes , but it does not reach any further ; it fails to organize
the balance and harmony of proportions, leaving it up at
the mercy of institution , sensitive insights and inevitable
shortcomings , believing that those shortcomings g ive all
the charm of sensibility. Peiper, as a cubist , is a compro-
miser ; he is afraid of consequent organization; he is afraid
that " his own " form would perish in it , his individuality,
and th is is why he demands some limits( .. .)
(31st August , 1930)
. .. Stazewski was here a few days ago . He brought pictures
for the " a. r." museum in l6dz (received from Brz~kowski
and collected in Warsaw) . We 've already got 17 paintings,
with 8 foreign: Arp - one relief, extreme ly good; Torres-
Garcia - one painting , good ; Prampolini one painting -
futurism ; Charchoune - four paintings (cubism , just fair)
and nine Polish ones; interesting among them are: by
Czyzewski - a multiplane one in which he outstrips the
futu rists and " Gtowa " from 1920 in which he has done
what Picasso did in 1926. Indeed , modern Polish painting
is not quite bad and it can keep up with the West. Now,
they 're in trouble in the l6dz town hall on account of the
too much of modernity that they haven't expected; they 're
afraid and they want to put things off until the elections
forthcoming in October, so that to avoid the pressure on
my part to advance the solemn opening of the modern art
rooms. We are promised some more interesting paintings
from abroad. There was an agreement that the l6dz
authorities would give us the rooms and we would give
114
62 Karol Hiller, Composition 0, painting , 1928
works of modern art as a deposit. Now they're afraid and
they try to put it off . (. .. )
(8th February , 1931)
. .. An opening , not of an exhibition but of a museum, i. e.
a room of modern art in the Museum of l6dz . This is an
old affair. As early as between 1917 and 1919 in Moscow
I saw the pr ivate collection of Shchukin, a manufacturer,
containing impressionism and its later ramifications and
two rooms of Picasso, and how the public at first saw the
impressionism only, in 1918 it passed on to Cezanne, and
in 1921 they already beheld Picasso - the collection pre-
cipitated their artistic development( ... )
(11th December, 1931)
( . . .) Until its social and ideological consequences will be
drawn from modern art - the logic of form, it will be
floating in the void and will not find its social extension .
What I mean is not propaganda or a political position and
its " expression " with artistic means , but the logic of the
vital attitude towards the facts of an author's individual
life and towards the facts of the surrounding life, the logic
originating in the logic of artistic forms( . . .)
(4th December , 1932)
. .. I am against your poem " W gtqb lasowi" (" Deep into
the woods " ). Out of the woods you should step towards
the contemporary life . Good form , perfection of form -
those are reactionary slogans and in consequence they
lead to Parnassism. It is hardly enough to talk about the
quality of form alone ; what is crucial, is a conscious choice
- from what elements this quality is made up ; where these
elements come from ; what is their motoric effect; and in
what direction what do we rely upon when we choose the
elements out of which we put together a work of art. Your
stepp ing out from the school into the space and the marvel
of nature - this is precisely what is covered by the defini -
tion of secession from the " a. r." ; it is a fl ight from work
into the marvel of the un-common. For we can indeed
imagine even a perfection of the Young Polish (i. e.,
modernist or neo-romantic - transl. note) form . And is it
not true about poetry , as about painting, that the system
of construction follows from the character of the employed
elements of a picture?, and that in consequence , it is of
the elements of the vital contents , not the plot!!! , out of
that follows the character of form and the mode of con-
 II
J N
I
z

E
0

Wtadystaw Strzemir'\ski, Cover of the volume of poems

by Tadeusz Peiper, Na przyktad, Zwrotnica, Library, 1931

struction . While with you, the elements of the vital form
are a flight from common life and seeking refuge in nature .
And where you touch politics - what appears, is not a
contemporary vital content, but a plot and an agitator's
work. ( . .. ) Though your poems are so splendid, I'm very
anxious about you . Not the perfection of form alone - but
perfection of modern form - and the greatest emphasis
thereupon( . . .).
63 Karol Hiller , Composition 215A , painting , 1936
Katarzyna Kobro "Functionalism"
(Funkcjonalizm), Forma 1936, No 4 (January)
The text is integral , with an omm ision only of the drawings ,
schemes and reproductions illustrating the elucidations .
Beside the book on space composition (written in collabora-
tion with W. Strzeminski), the paper on functionalism is an
interesting individual contribution of K. Kobro to the Polish
constructivist movement. The text was published in the
middle thirties, but the thoughts on functionalism were
many years earlier, as it was witnessed by the similarities
of its statements w ith " Composition of Space". At the same
time, a more intense emphasis upon the problem of utili-
tarian values in art, as well as upon the problem of a def ini-
tion of artistic endeavours in social organization is a re-
markable sign of the evolution of the views of " a. r."
artists .
Katarzyna Kobro
Functionalism
I. Functionalism is not one of the directions of art for art 's
sake. The aim of functionalism is an affecting of the pattern
of common life by artistic forms according with the prin-
ciples of scientific organization of labour ; i. e. an attaining
of the maximally useful effect at the minimum of expendi-
ture of efforts and resources.
The task of functionalism is to find out such a set of artistic
forms that would work towards utilitarian ends in the most
economic way. Functionalism looks for the shortest way
of producing an artistic emotion, and it considers util itarian
endeavours that bring about an orderly organ ization as
the discharge of such emotion.
Starting from the assumptions of a planned utilitarianism -
functionalism , however, defies all sorts of cynical dis-
illusionment, the laissez-faire doctrine as applied to life,
vitalism etc . These intellectual directions, so typical for
the present dismal epoch of crisis, actually strive to dis-
credit systematically the progress of human mind.
On artistic grounds, functionalism opposes all the at-
tempts at ornamentation , beautifying , contemplation in
art, " spirited" sensing of impressions . The test of an
artistic value is its utilitarian effect , broadening the pro-
ductive scale of opportunities in life. Accordingly , the main
principles of functionalism are : (1) ut ilitarianism ; (2) eco-
117
 64 Kazimierz Podsadecki, Cracow, 1930
nomy; (3) planning. The method of functionalism is the
subjugating of each activity to the general objective and
utilitarian content. Thus , functionalism encompasses: (1)
the field of direct organization of life by correcting the
current utilitarian production (architecture in the sense of
organization of individual and collective motion; printing
etc .); (2) organization of psychical life towards planned
utilitarianism and of purposeful activity towards the emer-
gent phenomenax).
Nonfunctional art produces beautiful paintings, sculptures,
architecture . Those works of art do not unite with life into
an organic whole, because the life in which we have been
and still are living, has been directed to drain out maximum
profits and to produce welfare for individuals. Those aims,
called "practical" but actually antisocial, have neglected
both the human needsxx) and the necessity continually to
supplement the store of energy of a man , exhausted by the
struggle for survival. The result of such practical " sobriety"
is a desire to withdraw from life and to seek for a recom-
pense in art which has nothing to do with the somber
reality . The withdrawal of art from serving the productive
needs of life causes the necessity for it to be elevated into
the world of unearthly, Platonic beauty . Thus art, instead
of being the organizing factor in life, becomes a factory
of illusions and dreams. Remarkably, the contemporary
crisis finds its reflection in the bodiless , floating appari-
tions and colourful mists on the paintings by kapists (a
Polish group of postimpressionist painters - editor's note) .
A deterioration of architecture which used to be a domain
of cooperation between artists and architects, caused the
peculiar phenomenon of "sublimation" of painting and of
its flight to the colourful land of impressionist illusions . In
industry, we observe, on one hand, a resignation from the
pursuit after integral constructive solutions of forms of the
produced objects, with at the same time a flourish of all
kinds of ornamental showiness, reminding of the Modernist
epoch. Instead of being one of the methods of construing
life, art becomes a narcotic anaesthetic against its im-
perfections. This is also what is underlying the flourish
in art of the biological line in surrealism, with its emotive-
dreamlike experiencing of pictures subduing the construc-
tive-managerial approach. The entangled, freakish line in
surrealist art reflects all vibrations of an inspired artist,
but it finds its justification in himself only - in his biology
and physiology . The profound emotionality of surrealist
paintings is an expression of the yearning of a desperately
118
struggling individual, withdrawn from any direct productive
functions. In this sense, surrealism is a counterpart - on a
higher level, of course - of the colourful " more sublime"
dreams of the kapists.
II. The main laws of the scientific organization of work are:
1. the law of the division of labour ;
2. the law of concentration;
3. the law of harmony.
K. Adamiecki wrote in "The Science of Organization" :
" A careful observation proves that the whole living nature
including the human organism is governed by these laws
and that due to this fact it attains the highest economy
in its vital processes. Also _ man has been making un-
conscious use of these laws in his communal life since the
very beginning of his existence" . Exactly the same laws
find their application in functionalism. However, when
translated into the language of artistic form, these prin-
ciples are somewhat modified in their formulation.
Every human activity embodies several moments . Each
activity has , as its counterpart, a certain set of plastic
shapes which control the activity. The shortest way towards
a productive outcome is a straight line. Therefore the way
of transition from one activity to another is a straight line
and the geometrical shape appropriate for it. The law of
the division of labour finds its counterpart in the geo-
metrization of form.
Every human activity yields the highest productive turn-
out , if it is distinct from the others and reduced so as to
allow an inferring of its peculiar remarkable elements,
distinguishing it from the other activities. The more strictly
is such a selection of the distinctive features made, the
greater is the productive outcome . The law of concentra-
tion of the moments of work finds its counterpart in the
principle of formal contrast.
The particular sets of activities ought to pass into each
other in an accorded manner. Such accordance, the fluidity
of the transition depends on an invention of an appropriate
method of coordination of those sets . Too much growth of
one of them brings about a tightened condition and an
obstruction in the passage to another. There should exist
a law governing the process of transition from one set of
shapes , directing the motions into another . Such a law is
prov ided by apprehending the form into the calculated
spatio-temporal rhythm controlling the sizes of the partic-
 65 Kazimierz Podsadecki, Modern city , melting pot of
life, photomontage, 1929
ular shapes . Such spatio-temporal rhythm is the plastic
correlate of the law of harmony of the particular sections.
Ill. If we cast a glance at the evolution of art towards func-
tionalism , cubism can be seen as the starting point. A
cubistic composition is a wrestling of forces expressed by
the line, opposed against each other , closing up into a
system of dynamic balance. Contrasts of dimensions and
directions produce a strong tension of form. The particular
qualities of the texture juxtaposed with lines produce the
conflicts of themes and patterns of plastic contrasts . Cu-
bism is a striving towards a functionalization of life shred by
the contradictions of the struggling forces ; it is a consc ious
opposition against the chaos of life at the most awful
crossroads of the epoch . Suprematism has introduced a
further search for the greater cooperation of shapes: a
suprematist work of art offers the emot ions of a planned
and integral system . Such a system arises as a result of an
interaction of the motion of the particular shapes. The
emotions of a plan, construction and organization became
for the first time the sole emotions in a work of art. In fact ,
the dynamic character of suprematism made a utilitarian
realization of its forms impossible, but the emotion of a
plan has ever since become the main emotion in artis-
t ic pursuits. Such a plan must, in its turn, be extended
to cover the problem of transition of the particular ag-
gregates of form into each other. Nothing valuable can
arise all by itself , without being dependent on something
precedent. Strefism (a theory of art by Leon Chwistek ;
from " strefa " - " a zone " - editor 's note) arose as an
endeavour to bring order into a picture by placing similar
shapes together in aggregates appearing once only, and
by making each of them to pass another in due sequence .
However, the fitting of the aggregates was purely mecha-
nical, not resulting from any common connection of
shapes . It was apparently a display of the pursuit to build
up the whole around a single axis. On this axis the
aggregates of form were strung , which , however . lacked a
uniform common resonsance , the rhythm of creative parti-
cipation in life. Therefore stref ism remained a phenomenon
of painting only, without producing any further effect on
the level of life . The only inseminative idea contributed by
strefism was the method of arch itectural designing as
dependent on the sequence of life activities . In this man-
ner, a chart of an architectural inter ior could become a
function of the sequence of life activities.
Neoplasticism offers the most advanced simplification of
form reduced to geometry . The variety of shapes is brought
down to the hor izontal and vert ical in the plane of a picture
and to the three mutually perpendicular directions in
sculpture and architecture. Neoplasticism realizes to the
utmost degree the princ iple of economy . As a foundation
of all composition it offers a clear and irrevocable propo r-
tion, instead of a var ied and accidental play of shapes . A
neoplastic picture considered as a plan of an organization
of motions , renders the highest concentration of per-
pendicular contrasted movements , proceeding along the
shortest lines of action . Instead of a va riety of liberal
motions , there is only a single one , the shortest of all.
Neoplasticism arranges motions by a standard , along the
shortest lines of action. It is a plan which principally ex-
cludes any licence .
A harmonious transit ion of one action into another requires
that all these activities be sub j ect to a common numerical
fo rmula defining the dimension of each of them. This
common fo rmula, underlying every shape, connects the
particula r activities in one common spatio-temporal
rhythm , determining in advance the harmonious character
of the tran sitio n of one aggregate into another.
IV. The development of the plastic form has grown beyond
the stage of a picture as the sole field on which artistic
ideas are embodied. At the early phase , the plastic form
had to seek support for itself in nature - hence the natural-
istic character of the passed plastic arts. An artist strove
to repr od uce nat ure and to add a certain plastic value to it :
to dra w pa rtic ular ly harmonious lines , to bring forth a play
of colours and shades more beautiful than in nature, etc .
As the plastic form has been developing, such deforma-
tions become ever more frequent and conscious . The
plastic fo rm has become self -sufficient. There is a flourish
of easel painting - compositions that owe their beauty to
the juxtaposition of purely plastic elements, rather than
to the imi tat ion of nature . A further insight into the laws
guiding the elements of plastics work, has revealed that
every plastic form is at the sam e time a no rm of the organi-
zation of the human psyche and act ivities. The set of such
norms embodies the potential methods of utilitarian endea-
vours .
As long as we remain w ithin the limits of a picture as the
only kind of a work of art t hat is deserving of an artist , we
shal l never grasp the essence of functionalism . A work of
119
 66 Kazimierz Podsadecki, Hands speak, photomontage,
1931

67 Kazimierz Podsadecki playing the role of a thief. From

a destroyed film. Cracow, 1929

art cannot be more or less "functional". It can be simply opportunities inherent in several fields of contemporary
a field of a plastic experiment, offering more or less useful culture. A visible justification of functionalism will be an
solutions of form for a utilitarian realization of functional- epoch of building, originating in the proper use of the
ism. productive forces of contemporary industry, art and psy-
The scientific organization of work traces the particu- chological engineering, and directed to the planned ful-
lar moments and sets of productive processes. Its objec- fillment of human needs. Such a justification of functional-
tive is to increase the efficiency of production. Functiona- ism is the sum of opportunities inherent in the epoch.
lism searches for the particular moments in the course x Our psyche is too entangled and complex. Its bewildered
of everyday life. Its objective is such a simplification and state is to a large extent due to the chaos dezorganization
sequence of them, as to get a whole that facilitates life. prevailing around us. A society molded by the contradition
Any sequence of moments of life has juxtaposed to it of struggling forces produces, as its correlate, a psyche
a corresponding sequence of utilitarian objects properly which is not integrated and incompatible in its particular
arranged. At the same time, functionalism permeates its expressions. An organization of society on the principle of
shapes with the emotions of planning and of purposeful the functional fulfillment of needs will liberate us from
organization. While the methods of functionalism and of this state of "overrefined trembling".
the scientific organization of work are similar, there is a xx "We are still always similar to an Indian who has come
difference as to the scopes covered by both. The scientific to a town with all his money and buys everything he can
organization of work regulates the productive process and see. We do not properly appreciate, how great a part of
its effect or output. The task of functionalism is to study labor and raw materials in industry is used to supply the
the working of utilitarian shapes upon a consumer, taking world with naughts and toys which are produced only to
as the starting point the maximum of economy of his be sold and bought only to be had; that render no service
psychical energy as he makes use of the objects that are to the world, and in the end become thrash, as they had
around him in his daily life. been mere waste at the outset" (Henry Ford, My Life and
By 1870 the current task of art was to light master. Impres- Work).
sionism did it, by studying the distribution of light to the
several elements of colour. Out of those discoveries the
harmony of colours in impressionist paintings was built.
However, for these purposes the range of artistic know-
ledge alone was not enough. A collaboration of artists and
physicists was necessary. Owing to it, impressionism suc-
ceeded to create its epoch-making work. Now, we can see
how false the legend is, widespread by the epigones of
impressionism, about an artist who is deaf and blind to the
events of life around him, or that everything that happens
in life, is " prose " unworthy of a true artist.
By 1918, the current task was to master artistically the
of technology reinforced concrete . This was done by cu-
bism and the constructivist directions deriving from it. In
this purpose, the plastic arts had to establish a mutual
exchange of achievments with building and with the
technology of building materials . As a result , houses of
iron, glass and concrete have been built, full of light and
sincerity of the revealed beauty of materials.
At present, the task is a reconstruction of cities: an orga-
nization of the totality of urban life.
Functionalism is a result of a summing up of the potential

120
Wladyslaw Strzeminski, "Modern Art in Poland"
(Sztuka nowoczesna w Polsce). In: J. Brz~kowski, L. Chwis-
tek, P. Smolik, W. Stzreminski, 0 sztuce nowoczesnej.
todz 1934.
The fragment reproduced here is the final part of the paper
by Strzeminski published in a collective volume. It is a
kind of a recapitulation of all the problems dealt with by
Strzeminski during the whole period of his constructivist
activity.
economy. Both its top achievements - an easel painting,
and the applied art, have maintained themselves in the
contemporary reality only by the law of inertia, but they
are alien to it and they have their origin in a different
economic background.
Those who are immune against artistic sensibility, will be
persuaded by the most eloquent factor : calculation and
economic justification.

Wladyslaw Strzeminski
Modern Art in Poland

The evolution to which art has been subject and the

complete change of artistic and artistic-social standards
imply the following consequences:
1. A break with reproductive, literary and contemplative
art.
2. A break with the conception of art as luxury and of
ornamenting the forms which an artist receives ready-
made.
3. Art ought to become a formal organization of the course
of everyday events. This implies a relationship between art
and the scientific organization of work and leisure, as well
as its grounding in modern technology, psycho-physiology
and bio-mechanics.
4. The field of artistic activity is the production of form in
the sphere of social utility.
5. A condition of the development of art is an experiment
and a collective control of its results. The aim of an ex-
periment is a disinterested search for the highest perfec-
tion of form.
6. The ultimate confirmation of the value of an artistic
experiment is its utility in production, attained with the
means of contemporary industrial technology.
7. An industrial realization of an artistic experiment is
possible only on the condition of the appropriately deep
understanding of its consequences.
8. An experiment that has achieved new plastic values
need not imply the possibility of its immediate realization.
The present state is a result of that the functions which
art attempts to perform towards the society and the
character of forms employed by it, are still linked with the
ground of the dissolving forms of natural and handicraft

121

Biographical Notes
Henryk Berlewi
Born in Warsaw on 30th October, 1894; died in Paris on
2nd August , 1967. In the stormy period of Polish avant-
garde movement Berlewi 's art followed the trend of geo-
metrical abstraction, bearing some features of the formal
severity characteristic for future optical painting.
His study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts (1911-12) in Paris
was a preparatory stage for assuming such an artistic pro-
gramme. It was then that he got interested in cubism and,
after his return to Warsaw in 1913, in futurism and dadaism .
The years 1921-26 mark a turning-point in Berlewi 's crea-
tive activity. It was brought about by his meet ing with El
Lissitsky during the Russian artist's stay in Warsaw in 1921,
and by Berlewi's stay in Berlin (1921-23) where he took an
active part in the international artistic avantgarde move-
ment. Being member of the " Novembergruppe" he exhi-
bited his works at the " Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung "
and at the International Congress of Progressive Art. His
article on Viking Eggeling was published in " Albatros " . It
was at that time that Berlewi formulated his concept of
abstract art known under the name of "Mechano-Faktur" .
Berlewi 's compositions made in 1923 consist of dynamic-
ally or statically arranged geometrical figures - rec-
tangles, squares and circles - of uniform colour or covered
with rows of white or black dots creating an illusion of
vibration. Berlewi put forward the basic concepts of his
" Mechano-Faktur", in a booklet published in Warsaw in
1924 and then in " Der Sturm " magazine. An introduction
to this text was written by Aleksander Wat. The concept of
"Mechano-Faktur " originated from the fascination with
everyday life , the cult of the machine and a strong faith in
an objective value and precision of geometrical forms.
These convictions were shared by the founders of the
" Blok " group with whom Berlewi cooperated (especially
with Mieczystaw Szczuka, Teresa Zarnower, Aleksander
Rafatowski and Henryk Stazewski). In March 1924 his Me-
chano-Faktur compositions were shown at his one-man
show organized in the exhibition hall of the Austro-Daimler
firm, and at the first collective exhibition of the "Blok "
group . The same year Berlew i, together with Stanistaw
Brucz and Aleksander Wat, opened a modern advertising
firm (" Mechano-Advertisement " ). Prospectuses issued by
them in the years 1924-26, based on typographic techni-
122
••••YKA 01.0WKOW 111
Le.C.NARDTNUTN
KON•i•NOOR
KON•l•NOOR
KON•l•NOOR
a,
I C
a,
C
I 0&6WKI
•O ~ &
-en·O 6 RYSUNKOWE
o N
::J. G)
w PASTELOWE
a,
K KOPJOWE
•-, C I SZKOLNE
ques introduced by dadaists, futurists and "Mechano-Fak-
tur " belong among the foremost achievements of applied
graphic art and are one of the most important monuments
of modern Polish printing. Berlewi also occupied himself
with stage design and designed small architectural forms .
In about 1928 he abandoned his experiments with abstract
painting and went to France where he devoted himself
solely to making figurative paintings.
In the years 1947-66 Berlewi resumed his Mechano - Faktur
experiments painting rhythmical forms. He often applied
a screening effect achieving optical illusions by means of
mutually covered transparent rhythmica l planes. His com-
positions were shown at internationa l exhibitions of op
art , among others at the " Responsive Eye " exhibition
which took place in New York in 1965.
Barbara Wielgus
Stanislaw Brukalski
Architect; born in Warsaw on 8th May, 1894; studied in
Milan ; graduate of the Architecture Department of Warsaw
Institute of Technology ; member of the "Praesens " group.
Till 1939 occupied himself with designing functional dwell-
ing houses. He spent the war years in a p. o. w. camp.
In 1927, as a result of a closed competition, Stanistaw and
Barbara Brukalski undertook the construction of the 4th
and then of the 6th and 9th housing developments built in
the Zoliborz district by the Warsaw Housing Cooperative
(WSM). Zoliborz housing settlement turned into laboratory
grounds for testing the most recent architectural ideas, and
provided an example of economically and functionally de-
signed flats . The Brukalski 's housing settlement built in
Zoliborz in the 1930s is one of the best and most beautiful
dwelling complexes in Warsaw . The diversif ied architec-
ture of these houses and a careful lay-out of trees and
plants prevented the estate from becoming monotonous
and gave its inhabitants interiors varying in character. The
Brukalski 's own villa, built in 1927-28 is one of the earliest
modern residential houses. The Polish pavilion at the 1937
Paris exhibition was built according to the project made
by Stanistaw Brukalski in cooperation with Bohdan Pni-
ewski. Its main building in the form of a rotunda was char-
acterized by both unusual architecture and excellent
workmanship ; it was perfectly located among trees and
displayed the natural beauty of such materials as stone ,
wood and cast iron .
 69 Kazimierz Podsadecki, typographical design of ad-
vertisements for Zwrotnica, 1926, No 10
Brukalski 's des igns for passenger ship-interiors form
another part of his creative activity. Here his excellent
knowledge of materials allowed him to find the best forms
suiting their specific functions .
After the end of the last world war Brukalski became chief
designer and director of the "Miastoprojekt " firm making
projects for numerous buildings. In 1948 he was appointed
professor of the Architecture Department of Warsaw Insti-
tute of Technology. He has written several studies in-
cluding a report on " Prace WSM na tie stosunk6w mieszka-
niowych " {The Activities of the Warsaw Housing Coopera-
t ive and Housing Conditions) delivered at the CIAM Con-
gress in 1934.
(Based on lzabella Wistocka's text)
Jan BrzEtkowski
Born in Wisnicz Nowy on 18th December 1903. Studied in
Cracow and in Paris. In 1924, together with Tadeusz Peiper,
Jul ian Przybos and Jalu Kurek he formed the so-called
"Cracow avantgarde " group of poets. In the years 1926-27
he published his works in the group's organ "Zwrotnica" .
In 1928 he left Poland and went live in Paris where he
made noume rous acquaintances with representatives of the
literary and first of all the artistic international avantgarde .
In 1929-30 , together with Wanda Chodasiewicz-G rabowska
(Nadia Leger) he edited and published " L'Art Contempo-
rain - Sztuka wsp6tczesna" , a bi-lingual periodical de-
voted to poetry and art. Among its contributors were the
most outstanding west European and Polish critics, poets
and artists representing the new art such as Fernand Leger,
Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Michel Seuphor, Jean Cassou, Max
Jacob , Celine Arnauld, Tristan Tzara , Henryk Stai:ewski,
August Zamoyski and Julian Przybos . He himself tried his
hand at art criticism publishing a series of articles en-
titled " Kilometrage de la peinture contemporaine 1908-
1930". In the third issue of the periodical he printed his
article " Bonsoir Mr. Picasso " in which he criticized the
already recognized painter, provoking lively comments
among the art istic milieu. Be ing a close friend of Seuphor
he came in contact with " Cercle et Carre " and, later
on, with " Abstraction-Creation". In the years 1931-33
BrzE1kowski, Jalu Kurek and Julian Przybos, jointly edited
the "Linia" magazine of literary avantgarde issued in Cra-
cow as a continuation of "Zwrotnica ". In 1930-36 he co-
operated with Strzeminski and his " a. r." (revolutionary
artists) group which gathered both poets and artists. It was
thanks to BrzE;/kowski's efforts that the International Collec-
tion of Modern Art was formed in l6dz with works by re-
presentatives of the Western-European artistic avant -garde .
Till the outbreak of the Second World War BrzE;/kowski re-
gularly contributed articles to Polish magazines and, in
spite of geographical distance, actively participated in the
formation of Polish new poetry . It was only during the war
years, which he spent in the south of France, that BrzE1kow-
ski lost the contact with his home country. This contact
was resumed in 1957. Since that time several of his books
have been published here and his texts have often been
printed in Polish magazines . BrzE1kowski is a bi-lingual
poet. He has published four volumes of poetry: "Spectacle
metallique" (1937), "Nuits vegetales " (1938), "Les murs du
silence " (1956) "Lettres en souffrance" (1972) which were
warmly received by French critics. BrzE1kowski's poetry,
as well as his theoretical ideas , took their shape under the
strong influence of Peiper and also of French surrealism,
especially in art. He had adopted Peiper's programme and
tried to apply it in practice in "TE1tno" (The Pulse), his first
volume of poems published in 1925.
What attracted him was, first of all, the artist's construc-
tive attitude, the idea of functionalism, order and disci-
pline, and contemporary subject matter. He had adopted
a concept of poetry as a sub-language and of the new
function of a poetic metaphor. Yet the nature of his own
imagination and the influence of surrealists prompted him
to reject this orthodox model and to formulate his own
programme of "poetic materialism" which he put forward
in such essays as " Poezja integralna" (Integral Poetry,
published in the "a. r." Library, Vol.5, 1933), " lntegralizmw
czasie" (lntegralism and Time , 1937), and "Wyobraznia
wyzwolona" (The Liberated Imagination , 1938). The imag-
inat ion is here allotted the leading role but , contrary to
surrealists ideas , it is subordinated to strictly defined rules
of construction. Poetry consists of metaphoric images and
alliteration, and it is associations which organize these
elements into poetic structures. The application of elypsis
gives a poetical statement its ambiguity. BrzE1kowski's
poems included in such volumes as "Na katodzie" (On a
Cathode, 1929), " W drugiej osobie " (The Second Person,
published as Vol. 4 of the " a. r." Library, 1933), " ZacisniE1te
dookota ust" (Pressed Around Lips , Vol. 7 of the "a. r."
Library , 1936) are to a great extent written according to the
above principles . BrzE1kowski often employs the material of
123
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dreams, creating singularly exotic worlds. His poems are
full of eroticism and sensuality. It is the sound of words as
well as their meaning which acquire poetic value. His
poetry is characterized by a certain degree of conceptual-
ism and an "esprit dad a" .
The war years mark a turning point in Brz!;lkowski's poetry.
In his volumes published in the years 1947-59 there ap-
peared an existential question of transiency and duration.
The time sphere of these poems is divided into the past
and the present which corresponds to the duality of the
lyric hero 's psychological and physical existence. Poems
published in 1964-72 acquired a new value. His rich imag-
ination got attracted by science-fiction and the poetry of
the absurd. There appeared in them an element of meta-
physics alien to his earlier poems. Deformation and par-
ody started to play quite a considerable role.
BrzElkowski has also written a few novels. The most inter-
esting of them are : " Psychoanalityk w podr6i:y" (The Psy-
choanalyst's Travels, 1929), " Bankructwo profesora Muel-
lera" (Professor Mueller's Bankruptcy, 1931 ), and "24 ko-
chank6w Perdity Loost" (24 Lovers of Perdita Loost, writ-
ten before the last world war but published only in 1961).
They are all clearly experimental novels and show a strong
impact of Freud's theory. In the sphere of narration Brz!;l-
kowski tries to apply new means of expression borrowed
from the film art.
Andrzej Ptauszewski
Karol Hiller
Born on November 24, 1891 in l6dz; he was killed on De-
cember 7, 1939, as one of the first victims of the Nazi terror
in l6dz.
In 1910, after graduation from a Craft and Industry School
in l6dz, he began the studies in the Higher Technical
School in Darmstadt, Germany, and then, since 1912, he
studied architecture at the Polytechnical Institute in
Warsaw . After the break of World War I he was evacuated to
Moscow with the whole Institute in 1915. In 1916 he was
drafted in the czarist army. He spent the years of the Oc-
tober Revolution in Kiyev and he studied there in the
Ukrainian Academy of Fine Arts. Under the influence of
Mikhail Boychuk, a Ukrainian byzantinist painter, faithful to
the monumental traditions of Ukrainian art, Hiller learned
the old painterly techniques, in particular the ways of em-
ploying tempera and gilding . He also learned to under-
stand the art of archaic Greece, Byzantium and Asia. He got
acquainted with the art of Russian constructivism, as it
came to be proved by his later artistic production and the
few verbal statements . During this period his leftist ideas
were established.
He returned to l6dz in 1921. Together with Witold Wan-
durski, a poet, dramatist, communist who came back from
Russia like himself, he wrote a cycle of five articles for the
local daily, on "The Plastic Arts of l6dz " (1922). The atten-
tion of the two authors was attracted by the peculiar
"cubofuturism" of the city; they were fascinated by its
traffic, the rhythm of work and mechanization, and by the
specific proletarian culture. The terms used in these ar-
ticles were typical for the avangarde art in Russia. In 1922
and 1923 Hiller produced a series of linocuts, landscapes
of l6dz and figural scenes; there are features of construc-
tivist thinking in them; above all they are remarkable for
their literary narration .
In those years Karol Hiller and Witold Wandurski endea-
voured to establish in l6dz a powerful cultural center. In
1923 they took care of an amateur theatre, the "Worker's
Stage ", revolutionary both in its repertoire and forms of
staging. In 1926 Hiller illustrated a volume of poems by
Wandurski "Sadze i ztoto" (" Soot and Gold"); the illustra-
tions were monumental and decorative in their style. He
also produced ex-librises and book covers for a cheap
series of thrillers; those covers , full of expression had a
very direct impact. Sometimes he also employed the tech-
nique of photographic montage .
Hiller's paintings from the early twenties were religious
compositions, decorative, flat, stiff, symmetrical, with a
tendency to reduce human figures to geometrical shapes;
sometimes a winding line of the Vienna modernism can be
found in them. They witnessed their author's bent towards
mural painting and his interest for the Near East art.
The war destroyed Hiller's output to a large extent; a few
important links are missing. Thus, the pictures painted in
1928, "Composition O" and "Composition with a helix",
the earliest abstract compositions by Hiller, seem to have
had no forerunners in his earlier art. In those vertical pat-
terns of simple, geometrical shapes reminding of machine
parts , a fascination by the machine melted together with
abstract form. Those pictures appear to be close to the
works by Victor Servranckx and Willie Baumeister from the
same period. However, the industrial landscape introduced
almost as a collage for the sake of intelligibility of the com-

124
 68 Kazimierz Podsadecki, typographical design of ad-
vertisements for Zwrotnica, 1926, No 9
69 Kazimierz Podsadecki, typographical design of ad-
vertisements for Zwrotnica, 1926, No 10
position led Hiller's paintings astray from the severity of
his contemporaries the constructivists.
Ever since, Hiller 's art has been connected with the ab-
stract trend in art. "Regeneration and continuous enrich-
ment of abstraction should take place by mending up the
bridge between art and man and nature", he wrote (" Nowe
widzenie ", Form a 1934, No 2). Art is expected to open up the
field of researches on the magic of shapes. Hiller's paint-
ing from the nineteen-thirties refers to elementary forces,
biological phenomena, cosmic visions, and in the end to
specifically conceived social issues. The form of those
pictures is in a way organic . At the same time he produced
compositions labelled with numbers and letters - "engi-
neering-romantic" constructions, close to Tatlin's art. Both
genres are marked by rich metaphorical contents and a
peculiar poetic quality which Hiller never rejected. As it
seems, he was by that time influenced by Bergson's philo-
sophy . His pictures have rich and varied texture; they deal
mainly with problems of space and of its relativity. By the
end of the decade Hiller's art attained a degree of synthe-
sis. A symbolic human figure or a crowd appeared in his
paintings. Colour and texture became less varied and more
uniform; the surfaces acquired a metal-like quality .
In 1928 Hiller began to work on a new graphic technique
called by him heliography. The method was different from
photography without a camera practiced by Man Ray or
Lazio Moholy-Nagy. Hiller 's negative material was a trans-
parent celluloid plate covered with white tempera. The
final result , a print, was made on photo-sensitive paper by
exposition to light. The versatile material allowed for
varied artistic effects - painting, scrubbing, grinding of
paint - and they were much easier to attain than in wood-
cuts or etchings . As a naturalist he was ultimately interes-
ted mainly in the physical and chemical properties of mat-
ter ; he made it into the material of his works, thereby anti-
cipating post war informal painting, and also getting
ahead of the light experiments of Moholy-Nagy. This is how
Hiller tried to justify his endeavours in scientific terms:
" Observing the mysteries of nature, noticed and recorded
in various fields of science and micro-photography, a mod-
ern artist can hardly resist a desire to pull these phenom-
ena into the domain of conscious plastic shaping. It is a
broad domain which will be certainly explored as it de-
serves by the future generations of artists. To keep to my
main theme, I simply wish to turn attention to certain po-
tentialities of heliography which can be made real by ful-
BOLi ERVEN
LUCAS
ROK ZALOZ.
8 1 5 7 5
0 LIKIERY
LIKIERY
LIKIERY
s LIKIERY
LI Kl ERV
filling certain conditions dictated by physics and chemis-
try. Undertaking these trials, I wanted, without imitating the
visual phenomena in nature, to create the sources from
which they derive directly on a plate. In nature, conden-
sations and rarefactions of matter in form of dark and
bright patches (depending on the background against
which they appear) are effects of wave motions of light,
sound, electricity, magnetism and the forces of gravity of
the earth. We can reproduce such natural conditions of
nature on a plate by means of electric current, by mutual
rejection of unmixing fluid substances , by emulsifying
liquids on their very surfaces, by producing sediments by
interaction of chemically active substances, by slanting it
etc. All this is done as if to revolt matter in a predetermined
direction in order to make use of the motions of its par-
ticles before coagulation on the plate. In this manner al-
most all the plastic images of the elements in nature can
be reconstructed, all the forms of vegetation and the sim-
plest animalistic forms. By the use of scientific methods an
artist can extensively add to the possessions of contem-
porary graphics, if only he is able to free himself from the
influence of tried means and if he stops to swear by his
board and tube of oil paints" . ("Heliography as a New
Type of a Graphic Technique", Forma 1934, No 2).
Hiller's heliographical works essentially do not differ very
much from his pursuits in painting. Many of his compo-
sitions are based on the results of the mastering of matter.
Such creative-intellectual attitude was a consequence de-
rived by Polish art of the nineteen-thirties from construc-
tivism, being at the same time its complement.
Karol Hiller did not belong to any of the artistic groups by
then active . However, he displayed his paintings and helio-
graphics in collective exhibitions with Strzeminski, Sta-
i:ewski, Kobro and other artists who had previously be-
longed to Blok or Praesens . There were two one-man
exhibitions of Hiller's works: in 1938 in Warsaw and, post-
humously, in 1967 in l6dz. In 1933 he founded the periodi-
cal "Forma" together with Strzeminski, Stefan Wegner,
Aniela Menkes and other artists from l6dz; he was its chief
editor for the first 4 issues and he published many critical
and programme articles in it.
Almost all the extant works by Hiller are in the Art Mu-
seum in l6di: .
Janina ladnowska
125
Witold Kajruksztis
Born in 1890; died in Vilna in 1961.
Witold Kajruksztis was an active member of the Soviet
post-revolutionary avant-garde movement and had close
links with the Polish constructivist trend at the time of its
formation. He entered the State School of Painting, Sculp-
ture and Building in Moscow in 1917. In the years 1918-19
he was an art teacher at the Popular Education Depart-
ment in Voronezh and in 1920 at the Fine Arts Section of
the Fifth Red Army Staff. Finally, at the end of 1920 and
the beginning of 1921, he attended the VKHUTEMAS
School in Moscow. It was at that time that he met Strze-
minski and Malevich.
After coming to Vilna, where he spent the rest of his life,
Kajruksztis took part in the organization of an exhibition
of works by Polish constructivists which took place in May
1923. His article printed in the catalogue, was a typical
artistic declaration inspired by suprematism. Three of his
numerous paintings displayed at this exhibition were
called "suprematistic compositions". Not unlike Polish
constructivists, Kajruksztis painted both purely abstract
works and paintings whose geometrically presented ob-
jects were closest to purists ' paintings. At that time Kaj-
ruksztis also made such well-known typographic designs,
as those of No. 5 (1923) of "Zwrotnica", of the catalogue of
the "Exhibition of New Art" in Vilna (1923) and of the
Lithuanian-French periodical "Revue International MU-
BA". Their designs were reduced to simple geometrical
forms. Kajruksztis was one of the founders of the "Blok"
group set up in 1924, but in 1925 his contacts with Warsaw
avantgarde gradually diminished and in 1926 he abandon-
ed abstract art. In his theoretical pronouncements, how-
ever, he remained faithful to the constructivist concepts
till 1930s. In 1928 Kajruksztis wrote : "A painterly construc-
tion is an indissoluble concept, it is a certain system of
colourful, luminous and dark patches and planes, of dy-
namic and static forces. It is a system aimed at combining
purely painterly elements into one dynamic whole, and at
rejecting foreign additions such as linear perspective and
an illusion of a three-dimensional form. The results are:
an unavoidable flatness, deformation of objects presented,
and abstract painting ... ".
Andrzej Turowski
126
Katarzyna Kobro
Born in Moscow on 26th January, 1898; died in l6dz on
26th February, 1951. She was born in a Latvian family from
Riga.
Katarzyna Kobro started to study sculpture in Moscow in
1917. During her studies she got to know the most out-
standing representatives of the Soviet avantgarde art and
met Wtadystaw Strzeminski. In 1920, she abandoned her
studies and went to Smolensk where she married Strze-
minski. Here she made posters for the Polit-Prosviet, lec-
tured on "spatial forms" at a school of ceramic art and
designed settings for the local theatre. Her sculptures were
shown at exhibitions organized by the Fine Arts Section
(IZO). She kept in contact with the OBMOKHU (The Union
of Young Artists) Moscow group propagating constructi-
vist-productive art, among others with Kasimir Medunetsky
and Alexander Rodchenko. In the years 1920-21 she was
member of the UNOVIS (The Affirmation of New Art)
suprematists group of Vitebsk together with El Lissitsky and
Kasimir Malevich. She took part in discussions carried out
by Strzeminski with Malevich and Lissitsky in Smolensk and
in Vitebsk. In 1922 the Strzeminski's came to Vilna (which
then made part of Poland) but it was only in 1924 that
Katarzyna Kobro settled in Poland and became a Polish
citizen. They lived first in Vilna and then in Warsaw. Here
Katarzyna Kobro joined the Blok group established in 1924,
and in the years 1924-26 exhibited her works in its collec-
tive exhibitions. After the group's split Kobro and Strze-
minski entered the Praesens group which gathered paint-
ers, sculptors and architects. By promoting cooperation
between painters, sculptors and architects the association
aimed at creating modern architecture which would com-
bine the solution of man's living functions with spatial
composition of forms and planes in one uniform system.
At that time Kobro and Strzeminski lived in Brzeziny (1926)
and then in Koluszki (1929) teaching at local schools. At
the end of 1929 a new "a. r." group came into being, and at
about the same time the Strzeminskis completed their
theoretical work "Kompozycja przestrzeni, obliczanie
rytmu czasoprzestrzennego" (Composition of the Space-
Calculation of Spatio-Temporal Rhythm) whose principles
she had applied in her sculptures since 1925. The book
was issued at the beginning of 1931 as volume two of the
"a. r." library. Kobro postulated a fundamental transforma-
tion of the sculpture's function which instead of being an
 w
u

Wtadystaw Strzeminski , Cover of the volume of poems

by Julien Przybos , Z ponad , Vol 1, a. r., Library , 1930
70 Tadeusz Peiper, Cracow, c. 1924
isolated object should become a composition of open
planes organizing its environment. In 1931 the Strzemiriskis
moved to l6dz and in 1932 Kobro entered the international
Abstraction-Creation group. She wrote an article explain-
ing her concept of modern sculptures which was published
in the group's organ together with reproductions of some
of her latest works. She continued her efforts aimed at
creating a new, fully economic sculptural form. Her spatial
sculptures and book designs were shown at the "a. r."
group's exhibition of "Modern Printing" (l6dz 1932), and
at that of "Modern Artists' Group" (Warsaw, l6dz 1933).
In her articles printed in "Forma" and "Gtos Plastyk6w"
she wrote about her latest experiments. The outbreak of
the second world war interrupted her creative activity. By
the end of September 1939, fearing the Nazi persecution,
the Strzemiriski's went for a short time to Wilejka (Western
Byelorussia), and then returned to l6dz. Nearly all the
sculptures left behind in the artist's studio had been del-
iberately destroyed by the Nazis. Only some of them sur-
vived. After the war's end serious illness prevented Ka-
tarzyna Kobro from resuming creative work.
Side by side with abstract sculptures which formed the
main line of Kobro's artistic experiments, one finds another
supplementary line of her work consisting of cubist nudes
made after live models. In some of these nude sculptures
she went beyond the static, analytic concept of Cubism,
coming nearer to the futuristic idea of "active forces". The
effect of the body's movement in space is here achieved
by means of an interplay of concave and convex surfaces
developing in space. In her article printed in "Abstraction-
Creation" Katarzyna Kobro thus wrote about this trend of
her creative activity: "I like to work from nature in order
to relax, just as one goes to the pictures. I enjoy cor-
recting what was incomplete in any of the artistic trends
of the past."
Speaking about her abstract sculptures one can dis-
tinguish two basic periods of her artistic development: (1)
From 1920. (when her first sculpture was made) till 1925;
and (2) From 1925 till 1933 (when the last of her preserved
spatial compositions was made).
From the formal point of view, Kobro's earliest sculpture
shows a strong influence of Vladimir Tatlin's works. The
way of putting together different materials and contrasted
surfaces clearly shows that she adopted Tatlin's concept
of "material culture" as her first theoretical principle. Her
subsequent works made in the USSR in the years 1921-22
are different; yet even these synthetic, suspended com-
positions close to suprematism preserve some features of
the first kinetic works. Forms of which these compositions
consist move around their axis forming a variable system
bound together by interrelations between separate mas-
ses, their colour and distances; in one of these sculptures
strongly contrasted parts take different positions as a
result of compression of steel elements, their tension and
vibration. Some of the abstract sculptures made in Poland
around 1924 consist of mobile vibrating elements suspend-
ed in the air, while the others reveal their dynamics through
internal tension created by putting together opposite
forces. All these sculptures had been made according to
numerical sequences determining the proportions of all
their forms and planes; even the tiniest divisions were
subordinated to mathematical calculations. The elements
out which the "Abstract Sculpture" (1924) is constructed
represent a particular case of arithmetical progression in
which the difference is equal to its first term. Other sculp-
tures are based on similar relations.
In 1925 Katarzyna Kobro made her first sculpture consist-
ing of open planes. During the following years she created
a specific type of rhythmical space compositions whose
dimensions retained a uniform system of proportions. The
relation between separate parts expressed by the figure
"n" is most often close to the golden division amounting
to the 8/5 quotient. The construction of a sculpture consists
in retaining " ... a constant ratio between the former and
subsequent form, in the uniform proportion between smal-
ler and bigger masses. Expressing this ratio by 'n' we are
able to foresee and calculate all the dimensions of all
shapes in advance". In making these sculptures Katarzyna
Kobro went even further than Malevich and members of
"De Stijl" group. Malevich's "architectons", as well as
Georges Vantongerloo's sculptures were, in spite of mathe-
matical interdependences incorporated in them, isolated
forms . Katarzyna Kobro discarded the idea of an isolated
form; being unlimited by any outside walls her sculptures
merge with the surrounding space determining its rhythm
and divisions:" ... the essence of sculpture art is based on
space, on its manipulation, organization of the rhythm of
proportions, on the harmony of form united with space."
Katarzyna Kobro rarely used colour and then only to mark
the division of space, to emphasize dynamic lines. Her
sculptures were on the whole white which gave them full
spatial uniformity. She managed to unify the stiff horizontal
129

and vertical shapes with soft curves which were also sub-
ordinated to the principle of the harmony of proportions. In
Kobro's view, sculptures could solve new spatial problems
which would face architects planning future towns but she
treated them as purely artistic concepts . For her, spatial
rhythm of separate forms was linked with the rhythm of
man's life; consequently she postulated research into
spatial and time strata resulting from every day needs
which , in her opinion, were going to determine the functio-
nal composition of future urban centres. "A sculpture", she
wrote, "should become an architectural problem, an
experiment in organizing methods of arranging space,
traffic, of planning the town as a functional organism, an
outcome of practical possibilities offered by art, science
and technology; it should be an expression of attempts
aimed at super individualistic organization of the society."
Her last preserved sculpture, "Kompozycja przestrzenna"
(A Composition in Space) made in 1933 is an outcome of
even further evolution of form; it consists solely of curved
lines, uses parabolico-hyperbolic space, and shows the
possibility of applying the most modern materials acces-
sible at that time. Though Kobro did not make architectural
projects, it was according to the same principles that such
outstanding 20th-century architects as for instance, Ludwig
Mies van der Rohe tried at that time to design their open-
space buildings .
Katarzyna Kobro was aware of the fact that her concept of
sculpture was considerably ahead of her time. But this did
not prevent her from propagating higher forms of the
organ ization of existence even at the risk of being mis-
understood by her contemporaries. In her socially com-
mitted art which justly gained itself the name of revolution-
ary art, she created a unique romantic image of future
towns for new progressive societies and for the future
"great creation of life".
The majority of her preserved sculptures are to be found
in the l6dz Art Museum, while a few nudes are in private
collections in l6dz and Warsaw. These works, together
with the artist's theoretical works, form an important
contribution to the development of European sculpture.
Janusz Zagrodzki
130
71 Kasimir Malevich and Tadeusz Peiper, Berlin, 1927
72 Postcard to Jalu Kurek, reverse of the photograph of
Kasimir Malevich and Tadeusz Peiper, 1927
Jalu Kurek
Born in Cracow on February 27, 1904. In 1922 he began to
study Polish and Roman philology in the Jagiellonian Uni-
versity . In 1923 he started to work as a journalist in "Gtos
Narodu" (the section of literature and film). He was an
enthusiast of "Zwrotnica". He published his first volume of
poems and he propagated the ideas of futurism. In the
academic year 1924/25 he obtained a scholarship for a
stay in Italy. He made friends with Filippo Marinetti, Paolo
Buzzi and other poets of Italian futurism and he translated
their poems into Polish.
In the years 1926-1927 he was a regular contributor to
"Zwrotnica", the second series. Beside Tadeusz Peiper,
Julian Przybos and Jan Brzflkowski, he was one of the
most active figures in the Cracow poetical avantgarde. He
treated poetry as an independent art; he reacted against
the legend of so-called inspiration. He believed that
psychic states and brain functions which produce poetry
were truly artistic only when they were "conscious and
normal". In 1926, in the library of "Zwrotnica", he published
an experiment in prose "Kim jest Andrzej Panik? Andrzej
Panik zamordowal Amundsena" (Who is Andrzej Panik?
Andrzej Panik Murdered Amundsen). He applied in it the
technique of a film screenplay and a free montage of real
and fictitious elements making together a set of images
reflecting the psyche of its author and of his personal
experience on both the conscious and unconscious level.
After "Zwrotnica" had stopped to be published, Kurek
continued its programme. In 1929 he published a two-page
leaflet, "Manifest poetycki Rzeczypospolitej" (A Poetic
Manifesto of the Commonwealth) in which he wrote, among
other topics, about the social function of poetry. A year
later he published "Spiewy o Rzeczypospolitej" (Solemn
Songs on the Commonwealth), being a practical realization
of the postulates of the Manifesto. In 1931-33 he edited
and published, together with Przybos and Brzflkowski, a
periodical of the literary avantgarde "Linia". The magazine
fought for new poetry; it proclaimed terseness resulting
from the principle of purposiveness and moderation in the
handling of language ("the least of words").
Kurek devoted much attention to the problems of avant-
garde cinema, describing it as "artistic film". He was firm
about the independence of film from literature and theatre;
he limited the role of an actor, reducing him to the rank
of an object ("we know a water bucket which played better
 ~~
lu(J/tl)w-
fl""i:~ ./~.
on the screen than Pola Negri"). He propagated plastic
abstract film: "In art films one fights for the autonomous
liefe of a picture in motion , i.e . of a picture as such ,
. irrespective of its meaning for the plot. It is a sort of
purely optical show, ignoring the meaning of the contents
of the picture . It rejects all realistic assumptions, and
indeed all that can have no room in the cinema and what is
outside the cinema. The plot overwhelms the essence and
the principal meaning of film, transferring the whole weight
of the issue on its weakest sime". In the shows organized
in 1932 by SPAF (Studio of the Polish Film Avantgarde),
films by Fernand Leger, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Francis
Picabia, Man Ray, Hans Richter and others were demon-
strated. In June 1933 Kurek presented his short film "OR"
(Rhythmical Calculations) which had no plot, but was a
set of apparently accidental shots connected by a common
idea of composition in a uniform rhythm. "OR" was pre-
sented together with one of the most interesting achieve-
ments of avantgarde cinema - "Europa" by Franciszka
and Stefan Themerson. They created an obsessive vision
of lief in industrial Europe, inspired by the poem of
Anatol Stern and the photographic montages by Mieczys-
taw Szczuka. The crazy pace of the film was even enhanced
by rapid montage, and negatives were successfully used
for contrast effects.
In 1935 Kurek was granted a special award for the novel
" Grypa szaleje w Naprawie " (Influenza rages at Naprawa) .
It consits of several loosely connected episodes which
give together a suggestive vision of the misery of the
countryside in Southern Poland, stripped from the charm
of tawdry folklore.
After the war Kurek returned for a short while to journa -
lism , but then he devoted himself completely to literary
work.
Matgorzata and Janusz Zagrodzki
Bohdan Lachert
Born in Moscow on 13th July , 1900. Studied architecture at
the Warsaw Institute of Technology . Member of the "Prae-
sens" group. Since 1948 professor of the Warsaw Institute
of Technology. When still a student, Lachert made a pro-
ject for a student architects' house on the Warsaw ram-
parts which attracted Szymon Syrkus's notice , as a result
of which he was invited to enter the newly formed
"Praesens" group. Beginning with 1926, Lachert joined the
teaching staff of the Architecture Department of the War-
saw Institute of Technology passing through all the stages
of its hierarchy and finally becoming a full professor.
In the years 1926-39 Lachert also worked as free-lance
architect in cooperation with Jozef Szanajca and occasion-
ally with other architects. In the prewar period they
constructed several buildings of various destinations scat-
tered throughout the whole of Warsaw , their total capacity
amounting to about 400,000 cubic metres. The list of their
projects opens with an unrealized design of the School of
Political Sciences characterized by outstanding visual
values and extremely modern construction . At the compe-
tition for a project of a "Cheap House" announced in
Lwow, the first six awards were granted to the team includ-
ing Bohdan Lachert, Jozef Szanajca and Lech Niemojewski
for their project of an unusually functional construction
applicable to different types of housing such as detached
and semi-detached houses and blocks of flats.
Lachert's and Szanajca 's project submitted to the competi-
tion for the League of Nations' palace in Geneva also
attracted special attention. These young architects were
constantly looking for new solutions and carrying out
experiments with new building methods and materials. The
house built by Lachert and Szanajca at 9, 11, 13 Katowicka
Street in the Saska K~pa district of Warsaw was a real
testing ground of new ideas. An excellent functional lay-
out of its interiors, arranged according to new patterns
on two stories, was coupled with interesting, beautifully
designed fac;:ades with horizontally arranged windows.
Houses built for the Warsaw Housing Cooperative, and two
TB sanatoria also belong among their best constructions.
After the end of the last world war, Lachert took an active
part in the work of organizations and institutions carrying
out the country 's reconstruction. In 1948 he organized and
then headed the first architectural studio of the Institute of
Workers Estates (ZOR). He designed several public build-
ings, housing estates , etc.
For his project of the Red Army Soldiers' Cemetery in
Warsaw Lachert was granted the State Award, Class One.
Many outstanding architects now winning themselves
renown both here and abroad were once his pupils.
Lachert's interest in ontological problems of architecture
and in methodology of architectural work finds its expres-
sion in his theoretical study which he is now preparing for
print.
(Based on lzabella Wistocka's text)
131
z CZASOPISMO
Kl(RUN[I(
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TN ICA
Maria Niez-Borowiak
Born in Warsaw on 16th January, 1896; died there on
14th September 1944.
Maria Niez-Borowiak attended the Academy of Fine Arts
in Warsaw (1916-20) together with Henryk Stazewski and
Mieczysfaw Szczuka. Her earliest experiences typical for
artistic researches which shaped the imagination of future
constructivists date from that period . Even in her earliest
drawings, made before 1920, one can detect wide-ranging
influences of expressionism, cubism and futurism so
characteristic for Polish formists.
She joined the Blok group at the moment of its formation
and her works were exhibited at nearly all collective ex-
hibitions of the group. It is then that, side by side with
works strongly influenced by the purist trend , she started
to paint abstract paintings. These diversified geometrical
forms arranged with a sort of decorative carefulness were
enriched with uneven surfaces and sometimes included
elements of collage. She also started to design theatre
settings consisting of geometrical forms. Faithful to the
principle of the integration of different art forms she made
some architectural projects and furniture designs . She did
not occupy herself with art theory.
When Blok split up, Maria Niez-Borowiak joined the Prae-
sens group, participating in its collective exhibitions.
In that period of her creative activity , the artist attached
special importance to the precision and simplicity of a
geometrical arrangement of space , abandoning her earlier
experiments with surface shaping.
The crisis of the constructivist movement which loomed
about 1930 put an end to her creative activity .
Andrzej Turowski
Tadeusz Peiper
Born in Podg6rze near Cracow on 3rd May, 1891; died in
Warsaw on 10th November, 1969. Studied in Cracow,
Berlin and Paris. The outbreak of the first world war found
him in Paris. He was sent to an internment camp in
Bordeaux and then went to Spain where he stayed till
1920. When in Spain, Peiper contributed to "El Sol" daily
of Madrid and to "La Publicidad" of Barcelona. Peiper 's
interest in Spanish poetry, especially in Gongora, dates
from that period. From Spain, Peiper went to Vienna where
he continued to contribute articles to Spanish papers . He
132
73 Cover of the magazine "Zwrotnica"
1922, No 1
(railway switch),
returned to Poland in 1921, losing during this journey all
his poems together with a stolen suit-case. Peiper's
aesthetic views took their final shape during his stay in
Paris and in Spain where he witnessed an artistic revolu-
tion taking place in western Europe in the first decade of
this century. He had attended Bergson's lectures, saw the
cubist revolution, got to know the new Spanish poetry
which gained itself the name of ultraism, and met Manuel
de Falla and Robert Delaunay. He came to Poland as an
ardent advocate of the new art. At first he came into
contact with the magazine " Nowa Sztuka" and with the
Futurists. But as early as 1922 he started to publish his
own magazine called "Zwrotnica". Its first contributors
included such futurists as Bruno Jasier'lski, Tytus Czy-
zewski, Stanisfaw Mfodozeniec and Leon Chwistek, as well
as Stanisfaw lgnacy Witkiewicz , August Zamoyski and
Wfadysfaw Strzemir'lski. "Zwrotnica" bore the following
sub-title: "A signal pointing towards modern art " . Apart
from the Polish section it provided much information
about west-European avantgarde artistic trends and
innovations. "Zwrotnica" also featured articles on supre-
matism and on Kasimir Malevich whom Peiper invited to
Poland in 1927 and with whom he went to Berlin. They also
visited the Bauhaus group in Dessau where Malevich met
for the first time Walter Gropius and Vassily Kandinsky.
In the years 1923-25 Peiper gathered around himself a
group of young poets including Jan Brz~kowski, Julian
Przybos and Jalu Kurek who, later on, came to be known
as the " Cracow avantgarde". In 1926-27 they jointly edited
and published "Zwrotnica" which they used as their plat-
form . Peiper 's poetic and aesthetic programme was born
in the opposition to both the modern version of romanti-
cism and futurism. He rejected the hitherto practiced
traditional poetry, propagating a poetry linked with mo-
dern reality by both its subject matter and function. Out
of the concept of culture as a continuous process of
abandoning and overwhelming culture he derived a speci-
fic cult of civilizational forms on whose structure and
patterns the poetry should be modelled. In his view a
poetic statement was a definite language message, and he
described its essence, structure and function. He intro-
duced a dichotomic division between the language of
prose and poetry ("prose uses names, poetry uses pseudo-
nyms"), thus creating a sort of a sub-language or an
internal language . From Spanish poetry he took the cult of
a poetic sentence . A metaphor was to play a new creative
 I
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74 Kazimierz Podsadecki, Cover of the magazine Zwrot-
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function: " A metaphor is an act of relating ideas in an sibilities having at its disposal a completely new language
arbitrary way; it is the formation of conceptual relation- and unlimited technical means .
ships which have no equivalents in real life." Peiper thus In his notes concerning the theatre Peiper stressed the
freed poetry from the world of real things and non-poetic diversified character of a theatrical performance. He
responsibilities , and the metaphor from being treated as a argued that its final effect resulted from the interplay of
purely stylistic embellishment. According to the then visual arts, music, literature and the movement of actors '
formulated theory of the homogeneity of arts , Peiper con- bodies. Peiper's sometimes controversial views about the
sidered it necessary to liberate poetry from musicality and theatre are, however, in some respects similar to theatrical
visual imagery . This was to be achieved by abandoning concepts put forward by Stanistaw lgnacy Witkiewicz.
traditional systems of versification and partly the rhythm . During the Second World War Peiper stayed in the Soviet
Peiper 's constructivist views sprung from his belief in the Union. In 1944 he came back to Poland and started to
parallel development of technolog ical civilization and art. contribute articles, mainly theatre and film reviews, to
A poem was for him an organic and functional structure Polish cultural magazines. Since 1949 his illness (a psy-
governed by its own rules. The making of a poem , just as chosis) grew stronger and Peiper retired from public
every creative activity , consists in putting the chaos in activity, without however interrupting his theoretical work.
order , of replacing arbitrariness with discipline. Finally , The last few years brought a marked revival of interest in
he formulated the idea of " construction , order and disci- his work which is best testified by the planned publication
pline". He put forward an original though extremely radical of his " Collected Works" whose first volume containing
concept of the system of blossoming . This system, aimed " T~dy" (This Way) and "Nowe usta" (New Lips) has
at making a poetic work fully functional and univocal already been issued.
consisted in developing the same subject in an ever more Andrzej Ptauszewski
comprehensive manner, as a result of which the semantic
area of word signs would be fully covered. Kazimierz Podsadecki
In his articles (" Modern City. Mass. Machine", " The Con-
temporary Metaphor", "The Road of the Rhyme " , " Comica- Born at Zabierzowo near Cracow on June 24, 1904; died
lity. Joke. Metaphor", "New Lips") Peiper formulated the in Cracow on July 10, 1970. In 1923 he graduated from the
most radical avantgarde theory to appear in the 1920s. His Cracow Industrial School, the Section of Decorative Arts.
was also the most str ictly codified system of ideas. In 1930 By that time he made acquaintance with Tadeusz Peiper
his essays were published together in a volume entitled and Wtadystaw Strzemir'lski; he later continued corres-
" T~dy" (This Way) . His poems and prose works are less pondence with the latter . He felt as particularly inspiring
well-known than his theoretical views. His literary output for him the typography applied by Strzemir'lski in No 6 of
embraces collections of poems : "Zywe linie" (Live Lines, the first series of "Zwrotnica " . Since May 1926 Podsadecki
1924), " Raz" (Once , 1929), " Na przyktad" (For Example, has been elaborating typographical setting for the second
1931), and " Poematy " (Poems, 1935); novels: " Ma lat 22" series of " Zwrotnica" (six issues during 1926 and 1927).
(He is Twenty -Two, 1936), " Krzysztof Kolumb odkrywa " In 1926, in the first exhibition of the group Praesens, he
(Christopher Columb the Explorer, 1949); and plays : demonstrated eight abstract compositions painted bet-
"Sz6sta! Sz6sta! " (Six O'clock! Six O'Clock , 1925), and ween 1924 and 1926. Since 1926 he has been making photo-
" Skoro go nie ma" (Since He is not Here, 1936). His montages . At the beginning of 1927 he became a steady
literary works to a large degree reflect his theoretical resident of Cracow ; in 1928 he was assigned a post as
views. After the liquidation of "Zwrotnica " in 1927, Peiper's editor of weeklies of the IKC company (" Swiatowid " ,
theoretical activity slightly d iminished . Though he conti- " Na szerokim swiecie " ); he published in them many photo-
nued to prin t his articles on poetry in numerous Polish graphic montages as grotesque illustrations . Between 1928
magazines, they merely supplemented or provided a com- and 1936 he has been experimenting in photography, often
mentary to his earlier programme. He became ever more complementing his photograms by graphic elements. In
interested in the contemporary theatre and film, especially May 1932 he participated in an international exhibition of
in film which in his opinion created immense artistic pos- typography organized by the " a. r." group . In 1932 and

133
 1•a••• 75 Kazimierz Podsadecki, Cover of Zwrotnica, 1927, No 12

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1933 he took part in the activities of the Cracow Studio of ca" which made his literary debut. Julian Przybos, Tadeusz
Polish Film Avantgarde (SPAF); he collaborated with Peiper, Jan Brz~kowski and Jalu Kurek formed a poetic
Janusz Brzeski in the work on the film "Beton" (Concrete). group which later on gained itself the name of "Cracow
Since 1935 he has exhibited his works with the Cracow avantgarde". In the years 1926-27 Przybos contributed
Section of the Trade Union of Polish Plastic Artists. In poems and critical essays to "Zwrotnica". Both his theo-
September 1939 Podsadecki joined the army, became a retical concepts and poetry took their shape under the
prisoner of war, ran away and returned to Cracow. In 1941 influence of Peiper. His first two volumes of poems clearly
he was arrested again . Many of his abstract paintings from reveal his fascination with modernity, new technologi-
the years 1926-1939, stored in Cracow, were destroyed by cal civilization and urbanization. They are full of rhetoric
the Gestapo . After the war, in 1945, Podsadecki was one of and grandiloquence matching the atmosphere of elation
the founders of the Szczecin Section of the Trade Union of which accompanied the birth of new times . Przybos models
Plastic Artists and an organizer of its first exhibition in his poetic reality on new life. He is greatly preoccupied
that city. He participated in the exhibition " Photo-Mon- with ethical problems and puts on the poet a strong re-
tages 1924-1934 " in May 1970 in Warsaw . sponsibility for the truth of his statements. Such attitudes
The painting of Podsadecki until 1926 was marked by a as the idea of a poet being a language labourer, and the
predominance of straight lines, producing aggregates of likening of poetry to work , stem from the veridical under-
geometrical blocks . Later on he made compositions of standing of poetry and the treatment of work as the leading
waving and interpenetrating forms. He handled sharp and supreme value. His poems directly deal with work
juxtapositions of shapes and regular relationships deriving and creative effort.
from a painterly fee ling for colour rather than from a mathe- His preoccupation with this subject matter will later on
matical principle. His typographical designs, both in lead to poems devoted to technical and personal self-
"Zwrotnica" and in the poetic volumes by Peiper and analysis.
Kurek elaborated by him , as well as in the covers of the His subsequent pre-war volumes: " Z ponad" (From Above,
magazine " Linia", are remarkable for their contrasting published in Vol. 1 of the "a. r." Library , 1930), " W gfqb
shapes and size of type. Podsadecki could logically las" (Deep into the Forest, Vol. 3 of the "a . r." Library ,
convey the most essential content of a text by means of 1932) and "R6wnanie serca" (The Heart's Equation, 1938)
compact constructions of groups of vertical and horizon- show less preoccupation with modern technology and
tal patterns. He also made designs of advertisements. visions of urban life. These subjects were now replaced
Podsadecki 's photographic montages were at first in- with rural landscape more familiar to Przybos. He is the
fluenced by constructivism, but during the thirties they poet of space and light. The common feature of both his
became more phantastic and close to dada and surreal- pre-war and post-war poems is their dynamism and move-
ism. Afte r the war Podsadecki painted landscapes and ment. In his early poems this motive force came from
still lives in a post-cubist spirit, with a rich colour gamut. outside, but in " From Above " it already stemmed from
the moving object itself. Przybos's poetry is in constant
Janusz Zagrodzki movement which corresponds to its dynamic construction
and the poet 's creatively mobile imagination. Strzeminski,
Julian Przybos who designed the typographic arrangement of the volume
"From Above", emphasized this feature of Przybos's
Bor in the small village of Gwoznica on 6th March 1901, as poems functionally linking their graphic shape with con-
a son of a peasant family ; died in Warsaw on 6th October tents , thus becoming in a way the book 's co-author.
1970. Studied Polish at the Jagellonian University in Though soon after the liquidation of "Zwrotnica" Przybos's
Cracow. Since 1924 worked as teacher in secondary creative personality prompted him to oppose Peiper's
schools. He visited Paris several times. ideas, he retained a strong feeling of loyalty towards the
Przybos started to write poetry during his student years, group which found its expression in his articles and in
but it was only the two volumes: Sruby (Screws, 1925) and practical activity. In 1929-30 he cooperated with "L'Art
Oburqcz (With Both Hands, 1926) published by "Zwrotni- Contemporain " published by Brz~kowski in Paris, and in

134
 M ·OR Z E
1931-33 , together with Brz~kowski and Kurek edited the
" Linia " magazine which was the continuation of " Zwrotni-
ca " . In the same period , that is in the years 1929-36, he
came in close contact with the "a . r." group established by
Strzemir'lski and was an ardent advocate and commentator
of both Strzemir'lski 's theory and art. Strzemir'lski's con-
structivist attitude , his concept of the function of the work
of art and his rigorous treatment of form and the economy
of the means of expression were close to Przybos's own
aesthetic ideas . After Strzemir'lski 's death he undertook
the t ask of popu larizing the work of the pioneer of
unism both here and abroad. He wanted him to take due
place among international reformers of the new art. Apart
from publishing numerous articles on this matter he initia-
ted an exhibition of the " Precurseurs de l'Art abstrait en
Pologne " organ ized at the Gallery Denise Rene in Paris
in 1957 at which works by Malevich , Strzemir'lski , Kobro,
Stazewski and Berlewi were shown . Art criticism occupied
an important place in Przybos's activity. He discussed
transformations occurring in painting and sculpture in the
first half of this century with good knowledge of the sub-
ject , showing special interest in abstract painting .
Przybos spent the war years in Poland. At the beginning,
he wo rked as librarian and editor but, later on had to go
into hiding and stayed in the countryside as farm labourer.
Post-war years brought him full recognition. He was the
f irst chairman of the revived Union of Polish Writers , and in
1947-51 stayed in Switzerland as Polish Minister Pleni-
potentiary. In 1955 he joined the editorial staff of " Przeg-
lqd Kulturalny " weekly , and in 1965 that of " Poezja "
monthly . He published several volumes of poems. His first
post -war poems showed his preoccupation with historical
events dealing mostly w ith the war and the Nazi occupa-
tion. Yet in def iance of total annih ilation they proclaimed
an indest ruct ible optimism and fa ith in human values.
Later on this tension and mil itancy gradually diminished .
The re appea red a return to the lite rary t radition and finally
philosophico-cosmogonic subject matter. Yet his poetry
always retained its brightness and optimism . The motif of
spring constantly reappearing in Przybos 's poems points
to the process of regeneration constantly occurring in the
whole world. In his essays and reviews Przybos never
ceased to popularize and advocate the experiences of the
avantgarde movement. He was also an ardent animator
of literary life and encouraged young poets to carry on the
search for new means of expression. His essays and
articles have been published in two volumes: "Linia i
gwar" (The Line and Clatter, 1959) and "Sens poetycki"
(The Poetic Meaning, 1967).
What was really novel about Przybos 's poetry was its dyna-
mic poetic structure and language. For him poetry meant
" the unity of vision comprised in the greatest possible
number of notional implications expressed by the smallest
number of words". Though language and thus word re-
mained for him the basic material of poetry, it was only the
"inter-wordness" which created poetic value. Yet being
the fundamental substance of poetry, the word has to be
processed. Trying to give his words new value Przybos
often reached for their original, etymological meaning ,
and often applied homonyms. A poet was for him an
architect who constructs a new, qualitatively different poe-
tic reality. The influence he has exerted on new Polish poe-
try is confirmed by works of the younger generation of
poets who may oppose him or try to overcome his in-
fluence , but are unable to ignore it.
Andrzej Pfauszewski
Aleksander Rafafowski
Born in Warsaw on 5th June, 1894.
Rafafowski studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow
and at the School of Fine Arts in Warsaw . In 1922 he went
to Berlin where he attended Alexander Archipenko 's studio
for one year. During his stay in Berlin, Rafafowski became
interested in the most avantgarde ideas of that time and
after returning to Warsaw applied them in his creative
work . He was one of the founder-members of the "Blok "
and then of the "Praesens" group.
His formal experiments went beyond constructivist con -
cepts and till 1927 he tackled problems put forward by cu-
bists , purists and abstractionists , at the same time strongly
emphasizing problems of colour. He constructed three-
dimensional compositions made of ready-made objects
(1924). Later on, he returned to representational painting
characterized by a certain decorativeness . He was an
extremely active artist. During the period of the greatest
flourishment of Polish avantgarde art he participated in
collective exhibitions of the "Blok" and "Praesens "
groups , and had numerous one-man exhibitions, among
others in Warsaw (1926, 1928 and 1929), in Paris (1927), in
Rome (1926) and in l6dz (1927). He carried out avant-
garde experiments in the field of stage design and applied
135

art. He is also an active journalist and teacher. Aleksander
Rafatowski is now professor of the Academy of Fine Arts
in Warsaw.
Barbara Wielgus
Henryk Stazewski
Born in Warsaw on 3th January, 1894. In 1920 graduated
from the School of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He visited Paris
for the first time when still a student. His first works, in-
fluenced by cubism and purism, were exhibited at the
Exhibition of New Art held in Vilna in 1923 together with
paintings by Strzeminski and Kajruksztis. In 1924 he
became a co-founder of the Blok group and journal which
he edited jointly with Teresa Zarnower and Mieczystaw
Szczuka. Opinions formulated at that time formed the core
of Stazewski 's theoretical search carried out in subsequent
years. On the basis of these views he may be counted
among artists examining relations between the object and
art, or between nature and art, and conceiving a work of
art as an integral creation governed by its own laws.
Stazewski 's search for universal rules and patterns and
his consequent tendency to apply geometrical, precise,
anti-impressionistic forms is close to views held by Mond-
rian and van Doesburg whom Stazewski only met later on.
Nearly all Stazewski's works made before 1939 were
destroyed during the last world war . What we know are
only a few preserved paintings and some copies made by
Stazewski after the war, as well as reproductions pr inted in
various periodicals.
In the years 1923-25 Stazewski mainly painted still lives
influenced by synthetic cubism. They are characterized by
a moderate use of Cubist deformation and monochromatic
colour. The artist tends to make maximum use of different
combinations of elements. Apart from these, Stazewski
painted pictures which Strzeminski described in 1923 as
puristic paintings. These were harmonious, geometrical
compositions characterized by a specific balance, a reduc-
tion of shapes to their most basic forms organized into
static, vertical compositions. Their architectural construc-
tion paved the way for Stazewski's future work.
After the liquidation of the Blok group in 1926, Stazewski
co-founded Praesens and became editor of the paint-
ing section of the first issue of its magazine.
At that time Stazewski's concept of architecture as an art
tackling the basic problems of modern form made his
136
77 Jan Brz~kowski, Paris, 1930
views closest to those of van Doesburg. Painting and
sculpture were only to play an ancillary role, serving archi-
tecture. An introduction of colour was to transform archi-
tectural dimensions and spatiality. This conviction can be
seen in a cycle of Stazewski 's reliefs made in 1967-69. In
his view, architecture is an expression of a collective style
shaped by technology. "By combining the vertical with the
horizontal", he wrote, the architecture "cleared of orna-
mentation has achieved purity and constructionism" (from
"Styl wsp6tczesnosci" [The Contemporary Style] printed
in No. 1, 1926 of "Praesens") .
Stazewski 's paintings made at the end of 1924, in 1925 and
in 1926 are known only from reproductions. They form a
transitory stage leading to abstract art. Here, jugs, guitars,
music notations turn into abstract forms and mutually
convergent planes. Dynamism is an essence of their com-
position . Outlines of unconstrained natural contours com-
pletely disappear, replaced by straight lines, squares
and rectangles. These forms gradually spread over the
whole surface of the painting as if unifying it.
The period from about 1929 till 1934 was the most active
and fruitful period of Stazewski's prewar activity. At that
time he made several long visits to Paris, painted and
wrote a lot. He entered into close contacts first with the
" Cercle et Carre" group and journal, and then with "Ab-
straction-Creation". He also met Mondrian and Seuphor and
became their close friend. Together with Strzeminski,
Kobro, Brz~kowski and Przybos he participated in the ac-
tivities of the " a. r." group editing joint leaflets and mani-
festos. When in Paris, he collected paintings for the
gallery of modern art of the l6dz Museum.
Stazewski's opinions expressed at that time were a conti-
nuation of his earlier standpoint. Answering a question-
naire concerning the state and directions of modern artis-
tic researches, announced in the "Europa" magazine on
Strzeminski 's initiative, he wrote : "The rapid changes oc-
curring in present-day life find their manifestation in the
new contents of artistic attitudes ... Modern art can de-
velop by refreshing its atmosphere and by feeding itself at
the sources of lively and changing social and scientific
thought ... Present-day art - its main features are: The
economy of forms and surface and arithmetical relations
between shapes ... Impartiality of perception expresses
itself most strongly in grasping the phenomena in their
impersonal proportions, that is in non-representational art
which reveals the essence of visual elements contained in

L:ART
CONTEl1PORAIN
1
REVUE D'ART
INTERNATIONAL
SZTUKA
WSPotCZESNA
a given object, instead of its fortuitous and changing
features " . Continuing this argument in an article printed
in "Abstraction-Creation " Stazewski wrote that the system
of contemporary art depended on the urbanized and in-
dustrialized environment in which people lived.
Stazewski's view of actual artistic activity was at that time
an expression of his effort to combine unism with neo-
plasticism. His paintings made at that period are abstract
compositions; sometimes, like neo-plasticists, he applied
a basic colour spectrum and sometimes used only white
and various shades of grey , adding one colour patch .
These pictures are combinations of similar geometrical
elements put in rigorous order in which the principle of
the vertical-horizontal arrangement is str ictly observed .
Fields resulting from these divisions are uniformly treated .
Colour is an element of balance. Colour patches are only
limited by their shapes . Often applied curving contours
add to the pictures ' coherence and sometimes prompt as-
sociations with real objects, leading to purism .
Yet Stazewski expressed himself most fully in paintings
made in white, black and various shades of grey in which
a composition of simple planes was determined by means
of surface variations or by changing and vibrating rhythms
of stripes and cross-patterns. (They found their continua-
tion in Stazewski's works from the years 1963-70). Their
predominant feature was the principle of equivalence of
the composition's elements. Later on geometrical ele-
ments began to take the contours of natural forms . These
pictures show the greatest affinity to unistic paintings.
Beginning with 1934 Stazewski 's paintings took on a
different shape. That year he exhibited landscape paintings
and portraits, and started to publish articles devoted to
the history of art and styles. He occupied himself with in-
terior decoration (his interest in these problems viewed
from the neo-plasticists point of view, dates back to the
1920s) and with applied graphic art.
A one-man exhibition of Stazewski 's work held in Warsaw
in 1955 was the first manifestation of Polish avantgarde
art since 1949. At that time he painted compositions con-
sisting of flatly outlined contours filled with colour of a
very wide range. The next stage of his post-war artistic
development, resulting from the former period as well as
from his experiences gathered in the 1920s and at the
beginning of the 1930s, consists of colour reliefs which he
still continues to make .
Between 1959 and 1963 Stazewski made a series of
78 Cover of the magazine L'Art Contemporain, Sztuka
Wsp6tczesna , 1929, No 1
so-called white reliefs . These consist of barre l-like forms
or rectangles with cupped sides placed on the canvas in
changing , relative , flo ating arrangements . As far as their
notional aspect is co nce rned the series may be compared
to modern physicists ' d iscussions concerning the idea of
order and randomness .
White reliefs were then replaced by metal reliefs . Here
rhythmically arranged, identical , polished elements of
geometrica l shapes form compos itions similar in many
aspects to Op Art.
Since 1967 Stazewski has been making colour reliefs
based on the principle of a square composition. He has
abandoned all problems concerned with emotional appeal
of colour in favo ur of shaping space by means of colour.
He has also started to make large-scale compositions . His
efforts aimed at tra nscending the boundaries of a limited
picture found th eir f ullest expression in an arrangement of
colour flash-ligh ts against the sky prepared for the "Wroc-
taw 1970" Symposium.
This tendency to step beyond the limited picture area, the
constant efforts to solve ever new formal problems, up-to-
dateness and vigorousness make Stazewski 's art one of
the most interesting phenomena of Polish postwar art.
Janina ladnowska
Wladyslaw Strzeminski
Born on November 21, 1893 in Minsk , Belorussia, as a son
of Maksymilian Strzemiriski and Eugenia Olechnowicz.
He died on December 26, 1952 in l6dz.
Strzemiriski spent his youth in Russia. At 21 he graduated
from a Military School of Land Engineering and he took
part in World War I as an engineering officer in the czarist
army. He was wounded in the Osowiec battle and since
1917 he has been treated in Moscow hospitals. During that
time he made acquaintance of his f uture wife, Katarzyna
Kobro. He also developed an interest for painting . He be-
gan his artistic studies during the Revolution; he studied in
Vkhutemas and then lnkhuk . He found himself , wholly
aware of the importance of the place, in the center of dis-
cussions on new art and its social role . He took the side
of Malevich and he collaborated with the founder of supre-
matism in Moscow and Vitebsk . The years from 1917 to
1922 were the period of his earliest experiences and
achievements; in those years he came from a strong in-
137

fluence by Malevich to attempts at polemics with him; it
was also during that period that his theory of unism, fully
formulated only in Poland, took on its germinal shape.
Early in 1922 he came to Poland together with Katarzyna
Kobro and at first he stayed in Vilna. In "Zwrotnica" he
published his remarks on the recent Soviet art. In May
1923, with another adherent of suprematism, Witold Kaj-
ruksztis, he organized an exhibition of "New Art". The
catalogue, elaborated graphically in the suprematist spirit,
brought the first theoretical formulation of the theory of
unism, subsequently enriched and made more and more
profound during the following ten years. The works pre-
sented by Strzeminski included cubist studies, first unistic
pictures called by then "synthetic" and a suprematic
architectonic design.
With Strzeminski 's collaboration, due to the energy of
Szczuka and Zarnower, an artistic group Blok, uniting
"cubists, suprematists and constructivists" was establish-
ed in Warsaw in March 1924. An exhibition in the Auto-
mobile Salon "Laurin-Clement" and the publication of the
first issue of the "Blok" magazine, an organ of the group,
opened up officially the period of development of Polish
constructivism. Strzeminski, together with the other mem-
bers of the group, exhibited his works in almost all collec-
tive exhibitions at home and abroad. He took active part
in the editing of the magazine and he published several
more or less extensive papers on art in it; among them the
article " B = 2" was an extremely interesting study intro-
ducing into the problems of unism. In 1924 he lived in
Warsaw. In 1925, in the rooms of the Trade Union of Polish
Plastic Artists, he had a one-man exhibition in which he
showed his new analytical cubist studies and abstract
works solving some of the problems put forth by the unistic
theory. The unistic paintings made at the time were based
on geometrical forms. The inner touching contours were
drawn with waving lines. The surfaces of roughly rectangu-
lar or square forms were covered within their closed limits
with delicately differentiated hues. Due to Strzeminski's
mediation, the Blok group contacted Malevich who pub-
lished an extensive essay on art in the magazine. Since
1922 Strzeminski had been trying to invite Malevich to
Poland and he eventually succeeded , though only in 1927.
Malevich had a large exhibition of his works in the rooms
of the Polish Artistic Club in Polonia Hotel, and on March
25 he delivered a lecture for a crowded audience on
"Analysis of contemporary artistic directions". Strzeminski
138
79 Julian Przybos, Cracow, c.1924
Wtadystaw Strzeminski, typography of "Zwrotnica", 1923,
No6,p.172 •
remained friendly towards Malevich and in this he differed
from Szczuka. The clash within Blok of two strong indi-
vidualities of Strzeminski and Szczuka, an antagonism of
basically different outlooks, must have led to sharp con-
troversies, and as a result Strzeminski left the group early
in 1925. His charge against utilitarianism was that it "lacked
a foundation in form " and in consequence, "as soon as it
became necessary to take to positive work and to create
the modern canons of form instead of the vague expres-
sion of the slogans, Szczuka had to give up artistic acti-
vity", wrote Strzeminski.
During the twenties Strzeminski has been living in small
communities near l6dz: Szczekociny, Brzeziny, Koluszki.
When in the first half of 1926 Szymon Syrkus suggested a
formation of a new artistic group Praesens, approving the
programme of functionalism, Strzeminski joined it. In
September 1926, in an exhibition of the group in a Warsaw
salon "Zach~ta", he displayed interior designs and typo-
graphical projects of books. His article, written together
with Syrkus, on painting and functional architecture, pub-
lished in 1928, was the most important contribution of
Strzeminski to the theories of Praesens. In the same year,
as one of the organizers of an exhibition "The Modernist
Salon" and as the author of the catalogue, he championed
an even more tight integration of the whole avantgarde.
Between 1923 and 1927 Strzeminski has been developing
his theoretical studied on unism. The first version was
published in summer of 1927 in the magazine "Droga " and
then reprinted as a separate volume published in the
"Praesens Library" in 1928, entitled "Unism in Painting".
This publication closed the period of the artist's deepest
concern for painting; since then, he shifted his attention
towards the new problems of architecture and sculpture.
In his artistic endeavours he believed in the necessity of
an analysis of form of the whole contemporary art and he ·
made intensive experiments in the construction of cubist
paintings; the result was a series of still lives and land-
scapes. These compositions, presented in the exhibition
of the group Jednor6g in 1926 and in a Cracow exhibition
of the Trade Union of Plastic Artists in 1929 (Strzeminski
won the second prize) were patterns of deformed shapes.
Those pictures, based on cubistic principles in their treat-
ment of space, gradation of forms and of the levels of
depth, were · more rich in colour than paintings by French
artists. The "Unistic compositions" were almost mono-
chromatic planes of canvas, rhythmically filled with re-
-
 80 Wtadystaw Strzeminski , typographical design for a
volume of poems by Julian Przybos , Z ponad (f rom above) ,
p.3
peated small forms, waving lines, more dense near the
frames and dispersed nearer to the center , differ ing from
their background by texture and connected with it by co-
lour.
Collaboration between Strzeminski and the architects
from Praesens did not run smoothly. Their last common
works were pav ilion interiors and an exposition of the ar-
tist's works as a member of the group during the Universal
National Exhibition in Poznan in 1929. Even during the
work there was overt hostility . Strzeminski remained an
advocate of the pure forms of Malevich 's " architectons "
and he could not accept the pragmatic and technological
approach of the functionalists of the Syrkus group. He lef t
the architects' group together with Kobro and Stazewski
and in the second half of 1929 a new group of " revolution -
ary artists" called "a . r." was formed on his in itiative .
By that time Strzeminski had been working at Koluszki as
a teacher in the Industrial School. In the school year
1930/ 31 he realized there the only avantgarde curriculum
of artistic education in Poland , to some extent based on
the Bauhaus ideas, but extended by his own considera-
tions . Since early autumn of 1931 he had been living in
l6di: . Between 1928 and 1931 he was working, together
with Kobro, on a theory of sculpture and architecture
and on the principles of calculation of " spatio-temporal
rhythms"; the results of those studies were published in
" Composition of Space " as the second volume of the
"' a. r.' Library ". His plastic output , beside new and more
profound unistic paintings , included a series of new com -
positions called " architecturals ". In opposition to the
"unistic compositions " , they consisted of large rectangles
juxtaposed on the principle of colour contrasts and mo-
dule relationships of sizes, determined by the relation of
the picture 's sides. Those works are the fullest exemplifi-
cation of rhythms determined by mat hematical formulas.
. Activities in the " a. r." group were related with an intensi-
fication of the artist's new interests . He collaborated with
writers , seeking for plastic equivalents of their texts and
for functional patterns of graphical compositions of books.
On the other hand, the ever more significant problem of
integration of all the forms of artistic expression and of
their social role required a new emphasis on the question
of the relationship between art and life. Typographical
experiments on " a. r." Library volumes and didactic work
in the field of printing provided sufficient grounds for
theoretical generalizations. Works by Strzeminski on func-
z
PONAD
T tional print were published in 1933 and 1935. His interests
for the social problems of art, expressed in the communi-
cations of the group, went togehter with the organization
of a didactic exposition of the International Collection of
Art of the "a. r." group in the Museum of l6di: . His un-
precedented persistence, zeal and faith in success allowed
him to organize an exposition which could stand com-
parison with any other one in Europe . During that period
he contacted, by Stazewski's mediation, the group "Ab-
straction -Creation" in Paris ; in No 1 and 2 of the magazine
of that title he published reproductions of his works and
theoretical remarks.
Strzeminski's broad and manysided activity in the "a. r."
group, synthetizing all his previous strivings, was also a
summing up of the changes in Polish constructivist thought.
This activity culminated in the event which was quite ex-
ceptional in Poland : an uncompromisingly avantgarde ar-
tist was granted the artistic award of the city of l6di: in
1932. It was a prize of nation-wide prestige. But this fact
was a spur for the forces which tried to discredit the mod-
ern achievements. The press discussion that ensued as
a result of this event revealed the general hostility against
avantgarde pursuits. Strzeminski had to fight back on three
fronts : against eclectics , against the advocates of folk
stylization and against the colourists . But these were the
last ramparts of constructivism.
About 1934 abstract art was at a dead end. This was also
witnessed by the evolution of its makers. On exhibitions in
Warsaw and Lw6w, Strzeminski did not show abstract
works any more. He presented a series of seascapes,
being a new phase of his researches, stepping beyond the
unistic formula . Smaller sizes and tempera paints were the
technical novelties . The paintings, delicate in hues, were
defined by softly breaking lines and uniformly filled
patches of colours, with contours not coextensive with the
drawings. The artist called them " a generalized synthesis
of the droppiness of drops, of the waviness of waves, of
the fluid seaness of the sea ".
Strzeminski's activities as an organizer after 1934 were
limited to the l6di: section of the Trade Union of Polish
Plastic Artists and the " Forma " magazine . It published a
very interesting discussion on the theory and function of
modern art between Strzeminski and Chwistek, an artist
and aesthetician whom he appreciated very highly. Be-
tween 1936 and 1939 Strzem inski was less active as an
artist. He also withdrew from his other broad activities ,
141
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absorbed by his new thoughts on the principles of what
would be known later as his " theory of vision". Together
with his students he elaborated a book on "The Principles
of Advertisement Composition" which, however , has been
lost for us, as the whole material , printed just before
the war, was destroyed by the occupants. Similarly, only
fragments of an urban design for the new, functional city
of t6dz have been extant.
In 1939 Strzeminski stayed at Wilejka, Belorussia. He pro-
duced there a series of pencil landscapes entitled "Wes-
tern Belorussia", being a continuation of his plastic
experiments from before the war . In 1940, on the occasion
of the 1st of May celebration, he made a monumental
decoration of the village , alluding to the works of
Soviet artists during the first post-revolutionary years.
He returned to occupied t6dz later in 1940. His
cycles of drawings: "Deportation" (1940), "Civil War"
(1941), "Faces" (1942), " Landscapes and Still Lives"
(1943), "Cheap like mud " (1944) and " Hands that Are Not
with Us" (1945), are overwhelming documents of their time.
Intelligible objective associations returned in them; the
human figures , condensed and surrounded by empty
space, are dramatically expressive .
The artist 's post-war activity was almost wholly devoted to
didactic work in the Higher School of Plastic Arts in t6dz,
where he taught art history until 1950. His papers pub-
lished by then were fragments of his lectures , present-
ing historical analyses of the particular phases of the
development of art. As a result of his inquiries into the
past he wrote a book , published posthumously, "Teoria
widzenia " (" The Theory of Vision"). The history of art has
been interpreted in it as an evolution of the manners in
which the world is seen, dependent in their development
on the economic basis and other outer conditions.
The drawings, water colours, temperas and oil paintings
produced by him after the war and in part displayed on an
one-man exhibition in t6dz in 1947, were rather remote
from the unistic principles. Those compositions, intensive
in colour, enriched by rough textures, with their synthetic
shapes contoured by soft lines, were developments of the
researches started around 1933-34. Metaphorical con-
tents, eliminated in the unistic compositions, came back
again.
In the last years of his life Strzeminski was interested in
psychophysiolog ical phenomena related to vision; he
researched the vestiges that remain in the eye after it has
142
81 Wtadystaw Strzeminski, typographical design for a
volume of poems by Julian Przybos , Z ponad (from above),
p.13
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looked at the sun. The result of these studies was a series
of pictures entitled " After Images " which were expressive
reports of his observations . Their peculiar naturalism co-
existed with the artist's continuous attitude of a researcher.
The art of Strzeminski developed in two phases. In the first
one, dominated by the constructivist approach, his atten-
tion was focused upon the picture itself and it culminated
in the formulation of the unistic theory; during the second
which began after 1933, he sought support in nature for his
studies of form, and his paintings became full of organical
allusions. Both periods were important experiences in
the international history of modern art. Strzeminski as an
artist and theorist inspired the whole Polish avantgarde
and by his invention and imagination he helped to break
down the traditional schemes in art.
Andrzej Turowski
Helena Syrkus (nee Niemirowska)
Born in Warsaw on 14th May, 1900; the wife of Szymon
Syrkus. Studied at the Warsaw Institute of Technology
(1918-25), and attended the humanities department of
Warsaw University which later on helped her in her work as
editor and author of articles devoted to architecture and
town planning .
Since 1926 she was member and secretary of the "Prae-
sens" group, and assistant-editor of the group's magazine
published under the same title. In 1929 Helena Syrkus be-
came member of the Polish section of CIAM. Beginning
with its 1933 Congress in Athens she played the role of
secretary at all the prewar congresses. During the Bridge-
water Congress of 1947 she was elected a vice-chairman
of the CIAM 's Board together with Le Corbusier and
Walter Gropius.
By their articles printed in "Praesens" and in foreign
periodicals Helena and Szymon Syrkus carried out the
struggle for new architecture , shaped its modern image, and
informed the Polish architectural milieu about important
phenomena occurring in world architecture, as well as in
sculpture, painting, theatre, film and photography. At their
home which was at the same time their studio, they played
host to such eminent people as Malevich, Kobro, Strze c
minski, Giedion, Van Eesteren, Adler, Hebebrand, Schmidt ,
May, Bernoulli and many other.
As an architect, Helena Syrkus studied and applied such
constructions as, for instance, the use of steel structures
 82 Wtadystaw Strzemir'lski, typographical design for a
volume of poems by Julian Przybos, Z ponad (from above),
p.23

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or of sandwich walls in house building (Skolim6w villa built in l6dz and Grudiqdz by the Workers Estates' Society
built in 1931). A project of housing estate built by the War- (1930-31), villas in Konstancin (1930-35), and a few hous-
saw Housing Cooperative in Rakowiec, initially designed ing estates in Warsaw (1931-62). Helena Syrkus is also a
by a team of engineers and architects from "Praesens", co-author of numerous articles written jointly with her hus-
was completed by Helena and Szymon Syrkus. band, printed in home and forgein periodicals.
In October 1939, that is at the very beginning of the war,
Helena Syrkus, together with a group of progressive archi- (Based on lzabella Wistocka's text)
tects and people interested in architectural and town plan-
ning problems, organized the underground Architecture Szymon Syrkus
and Town-Planning Studio (PAU) . She was its deputy di-
rector, combining theoretical and architectural work with Born in Warsaw on 24th April, 1893; died also in Warsaw
teaching future architects and workers . It was within the on 8th June, 1964. An architect and town planner, hus-
framework of the Studio's activity that Helena and Szymon band of Helena Syrkus. He started to study architecture in
Syrkus worked out a theory of a social dwelling unit on a Graz in 1914 and in 1922 graduated from Warsaw Institute
district, town and regional scale. They also prepared plans of Technology. In the years 1918-21 he studied painting
for further expansion of Rakowiec estate, as well as stu- and sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. In
dies into the general plan of future Warsaw (a diversified 1922 visited Berlin and then Paris . After coming back to
complex). Poland, he joined the "Blok" group in 1924. Szymon Syr-
When in 1942 Szymon Syrkus was arrested and sent to kus's cooperation with Teresa Zarnower and Mieczystaw
Auschwitz, she became artistic director of the Studio Szczuka resulted in numerous theoretical projects of dwell-
(Roman Piotrowski was its administrative director). In ing houses exhibited at the First Exhibition of Modern
that period, the studio prepared several projects which Architecture held in Warsaw in 1926.
were later on used for the preparation of the first postwar It was on his initiative that the " Praesens" group was set
plans of Warsaw 's reconstruction. up. In 1926 the group started to publish its own journal
In 1945 Helena Syrkus was arrested and send to the Lin- under the same title. Their programme was formulated by
denbruh camp and then to Wroctaw. Syrkus in an essay entitled " Preliminarz architectury" (Esti-
As soon as the war ended, she entered the Bureau for the mates of Architecture) printed in the first issue of the ma-
Reconstruction of the Capital (BOS), and in 1946 went to gazine . In it he summed up the achievements of archi-
Great Britain and the United States where she presented tecture and drew conclusions for the future. According to
an exhibition " Warszawa zyje znowu " (Warsaw Lives Syrkus, the only solution measuring up to 20th-century
Again) delivering lectures about social housing in several standards was to combine architecture with industry and
university centres . to adjust it to technical possibilities offered by industrial
In 1949, Helena Syrkus started to lecture at the Warsaw production. He assumed that proper understanding of
Institute of Technology and in 1955 became professor of progress prompted flexible architecture whose products
its Architecture Department. could be easily adjusted to rapid changes occuring in
In the period 1954-60 the Syrkuses studied the problems everyday life. He concluded that architecture had to change
of standardization of the construction of dwelling houses in accordance with these changes, and pointed to ever new
and prepared a prototype project of a dwelling house solutions introduced every day and every hour into the
made of pre-fabricated elements . As a result of these stu- building industry as a result of human inventiveness which
dies and experiments they published a theoretical study on was for him noblest feature of man.
"Budownictwo mieszkaniowe z element6w wielkoptyto- In 1928, as a result of his participation in a competition for
wych - droga poszukiwar'l" (Prefabricated Housing - The a project of the palace of the League of Nations in Ge-
Road of Research). neva, he was invited to take part in the activities of the
Special mention is due to such constructions designed CIAM 's executive committee (CIRPAC); he was its member
jointly by Helena and Szymon Syrkus as : an experimental for the following thirty years , that is till the liquidation of
theatre in Zoliborz district (1932-34), semi-detached houses the CIAM. Syrkus discussed architectural and town-plan-

143

ning problems at several CIAM congresses. At the Fourth
congress of 1933 he spoke about problems of Warsaw
architecture, and at the CIRPAC congress in London in
1934 he presented a project of "Functional Warsaw". This
project, prepared in cooperation with Jan Chmielewski,
met with high appreciation and was translated into several
languages. At the Fifth CIAM Congress held in Paris in
1937, Szymon Syrkus read one of the three main reports.
It dealt with "Zastosowanie zasad og61nych do planowania
wsi i region6w " (The Application of General Principles in
Rural and Regional planning) .
Szymon and Helena Syrkus had considerable achieve-
ments in the field of domestic architecture to their credit.
In 1931 the Warsaw Housing Cooperative asked the Syr-
kuses to make a detai led project for the Rakowiec estate for
300 homeless workers families, according to a preliminary
project prepared by a team of " Praesens" architects. In
designing it, they applied such an arrangement of pillars
of the skeleton structure which created most advantageous
conditions for planning flats . By multiplying this modular
system they managed to formulate certain principles ac-
cording to which the whole dwelling estate could be de-
signed. These principles were then used in planning new
estates and even new towns . By introducing the modular
system allowing mass prefabrication , Syrkus solved the
problem of building dwelling houses on a mass scale as
early as in 1931.
Syrkus also carried out research into the problems of the
theatre, making designs and studies aimed at moderniz-
ing the theatre and even the methods of performing. At the
International Theatre Exposition held in New York in 1927
Szymon Syrkus displayed a mock-up of his project and
took part in the discussion organized in connection with
the exposition. Special mention is also due to the project
of a simultaneous theatre designed jointly with Andrzej
Pronaszko and Z. Leski, the theoretical principles of which
were formulated by Szymon and Helena Syrkus. The idea
was to create a huge complex of scenic devices allowing
to put into practice the principle of simultaneity. Towards
this aim the authors of the project designed an interesting
construction roofing the whole theatre hall in which the
audience was stable, whereas the stage consisted of two
movable rings. Unfortunately the project has never been
constructed. The simultaneous theatre is one of the most
important projec ts tack ling theatre problems , measuring up
to Walter Grop ius's unrealized project of the Total Theatre .
144
83 Jalu Kurek, Cracow, c.1930
During the Nazi occupation of Poland Syrkus headed an
underground architecture and town-planning studio of the
Warsaw Housing Cooperative. In 1942 he was arrested and
sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. In 1945 he
became director of the town-planning section of the
Bureau for the Reconstruction of the Capital and in 1949
started to lecture at Warsaw Institute of Technology. In
the years 1957-59 the Department of Architecture of
Dwelling Complexes which he himself organized and
headed, carried out research into the theory of social
dwelling units and into prefabricated building.
From among buildings designed by Syrkus special men-
tion is due to his Old People's House constructed jointly
with Henryk Oderfeld (1925), the Fertilizers Pavilion built
at the Home Trade Fair in Poznan (1929), as well as numer-
ous villas, dwelling houses and housing estates built in
and around Warsaw.
Appart from being an active architect Szymon Syrkus also
wrote numerous articles devoted to a wide-range of prob-
lems, printed in home and foreign periodicals.
(Based on Izabel la Wisfocka's text)
Jozef Szanajca
Born in Lublin on 17th March, 1902; was killed in battle in
Pfaz6w near Tomasz6w Lubelski on 24th September, 1939.
Studied architecture at Warsaw Institute of Technology
(1920-27) ; was a member of the "Praesens" group.
When still a student, Szanajca made a bold project of a
housing district consisting of high, gallery-access blocks
skilfully composed of two-storey flats of the " maisonette"
type. As a result, Szymon Syrkus asked him to enter the
"Preasens" group and printed his design in the group's
magazine. In the years 1929-39 Szanajca was senior
assistant at the Architecture Department of Warsaw Insti-
tute of Technology; in 1929-33 worked at the Social Insur-
ance Office; and in 1933-39 headed the architectural of-
fice of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications and
designed the Main Post Office Station in Warsaw.
During seventeen ' years of his cooperation with Bohdan
Lachert and, occasionally, with other architects, he made
150 projects, 40 of which were constructed, and 70 com-
petition projects , 51 of which were awarded. An extremely
modern project of the School of Political Sciences which
won him nothing apart from an honorary notice , was fol-
 ,·11 e
KIIREK
-
PIE\VY·
O RZECZV
..
POSPOLITEJ
IZII
-
lowed by six first awards won by his team at the "Cheap
House" competition in Lw6w, and by an invitation to enter
the CIAM (Congres lnternationaux d'Architecture Mod-
erne). After the competition for a project of the League
of Nations' palace in Geneva at which Polish projects were
unjustly treated , S. Giedion asked their authors, that is
Szymon Syrkus and Jozef Szanajca, to take part in the
activities of the newly formed architects' organization
(CIAM) as Polish delegates to its meetings and congres-
ses.
The house in Katowicka Street, in the Saska K~pa district of
Warsaw, built by Szanajca and Lachert in 1928, was char-
acterized by unusual form , construction a'nd use of mate-
rials, and aroused immense interest. Its construction, in
which the roof was supported by transverse walls, allowed
to place windows along the whole fac;:ade. The house con-
sisted of three flats placed on different levels as a result
of different ways of connecting its two floors. This house
may be compared with the most avantgarde western
constructions.
Lachert's and Szanajca's "Centro-Cement" pavilion at
the Universal National Exhibition in Poznan (1929) was a
dynamic composition of contrasted concrete and glass
surfaces. Also civil servants' block of flats built by Szanaj-
ca at lnwalidow Square in Warsaw (1936) reveals his rare
gift for proportions and an ability to make proper use of
materials. In 1936, Szanajca, together with R. Piotrowski
and J. Reda built an estate consisting of sixty non-detach-
ed residential houses very well designed from the archi-
tectural point of view. Each row of houses had a uniform
character but each street was different. The construction
of this estate is an excellent illustration of the principles
propagated by members of the " Praesens" group who
considered architecture and town planning as two in-
separable factors.
Polish pavilion built at the Paris exhibition in 1937 accord-
ing to Szanajca's and Lachert's project combined simpli-
city and unpretentiousness with excellent functional solu-
tions.
The unfinished Main Post Office Station in Warsaw,
destroyed in 1933, was Szanajca's biggest construction.
As all his other pro j ects, it was characterized by unusually
logical, simple functional solutions and excellent pro-
portions.
(Based on Izabel la Wistocka's text)
84 Kazimierz Podsadecki, Cover of a volume of poems
by Jalu Kurek, 1930
Mieczysfaw Szczuka
Born in Warsaw on October 19th, 1898; died during a
climbing tour in the Tatra mountains on August 13th, 1927.
He graduated from the Warsaw School of Fine Arts in 1920
and in the same year he had his first one-man exhibition.
The works exposed there were deformed in the expres-
sionistic manner. The catalogue, written phonetically, be-
side its nonconformist programme, formulated expres-
sionistic slogans with dadaist overtones of liberation from
all limitations and convenances.
The next exhibition of Szczuka took place by the end of 1921.
The artist displayed his works together with those by his
friend from his student times Henryk Stazewski, and with
posters by a poet Edmund Miller. The exhibition, in spite
of its lack of uniformity, signalled the constructivist orien-
tation of the young artist. An affinity of the Polish painter
with Tatlin was also noted. There were exposed his first
abstract space compositions, now extant only in reproduc-
tions, as well as some mobile forms, mentioned by re-
viewers , but unknown to us.
The subsequent two years was a period of maturing of
Szczuka's artistic outlook. His programme statement in
"Zwrotnica" in 1923, participation in the New Art Exhibi-
tion in Wi!no and the display, together with Teresa Zarno-
wer, in the Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin, were all uniform
manifestations of problems typical for the earliest phase
of development of the Polish constructivism. The artist
demanded the use of modern materials and their expres-
sive qualities in art - he postulated and realized spatial
compositions built of polished iron, elastic steel, plates of
glass, rough surfaces of concrete; light and movement
had to be the principles of composition. At the end he set
forth the key problem of all his considerations; "on the
inseparability of the problems of art and society". Modell-
ed after Tatlin's "Monument of the lllrd International" his
designs of monuments of Freedom, Stimer and Liebknecht
were practical solutions of some of the problems put forth
by him.
Szczuka's energy and initiative contributed a lot to the
founding of the Blok group. The first year of its existence
was for him a period of developing of the utilitarian prin-
ciples within the constructivist programme, as well as a
period of his remarkable artistic evolution: he renounced
the problems of abstract spatial forms in favour of typo-
graphical designs, photomontage, architectonic interior
145

compositions and bold ideas of new architecture which
"unites in the fullest manner utilitarian contents with
aesthetic surplus". His numerous statements published in
"Blok" were reflections of this evolution. Along his sub-
sequent realizations Szczuka was more and more remote
from Malevich's version of constructivism, represented in
Poland by Strzemiriski ; he was always closer to the art of
Tatlin. In an essay published in 1927, during an exhibition
of Malevich's works in Warsaw, he rejected the ideas of
suprematism . He denied in it the legitimacy of easel paint-
ing in modern art, seeing the only place for a modern
artist in the field of productive work, conceived literally.
However, he never strictly obeyed his own postulate.
Among his earliest typographical compositions, employ-
ing elements of photomontage, there was a cover and
setting of a booklet of poems by Anatol Stern and Bruno
Jasieriski " Zi em ic1 na lewo"; the next works were made
for leftist magazines "Almanach Nowej Sztuki" and "Nowa
Kultura", projects of photomontages reproduced in "Blok",
political posters and, in the end, the most widely known
work, the setting of Stern 's poem "Europa" . In all those
works he linked abstract geometrical forms with natural-
istic, photographical ones - figures and objects. Con-
trasts of lines and colours corresponded with expressively
drastic contrasts of the juxtaposed scenes. Szczuka wrote:
"Photomontage produces the phenomenon of mutual pe-
netration of the most varied phenomena occuring in the
universe ... it brings an epical trend to modern art".
Szczuka was not a professional architect, but still his archi-
tectonic ideas imprinted their durable mark on Polish
avantgarde thought in this field. The postulate of spatial
architecture was realised in his designs , after neoplas-
ticism, by strongly emphasized horizontal and vertical
divisions. Approaching the principles of Le Corbusier, he
propagated a full integration of a single block with its
whole urban surroundings , composed not only by other
buildings but also by lawns and light. In his actual designs
he worked out, according with the popular principles of
functionalism, two-level appartments in cross-shaped
blocks; he thus tried to minimize the built-up area and to
increase the amount of light in a single interior. He wrote:
"New building is the building of garden cities in which
harmony and order arise out of the particular elements,
like houses, plants , the space of air, traffic roads etc .... ".
His uncompromising attitude in realization of his ideas did
not win him friends. After the split in the Blok group he
146
85 Jalu Kurek, from the film OR, 1933
tried to continue the publication of the magazine along his
own lines during 1925 and 1926. However, his growing
concern for social problems required a different theore-
tical and propaganda platform. He joined a group of leftist
publicists to found a new social and political magazine
"Dzwignia". His campaign for new architecture and utili-
tarian art was transformed into a broad analysis of con-
temporary society which gave his artistic programme a
new impetus .
In his considerations on a work of art and society, cul-
minating in the paper " Art and Reality", Szczuka set forth
the principle of two interrelated artistic categories: utili-
tarian construction and utilitarian beauty. The bourgeois
utilitarianism, he reasoned, was subjugated to the gener-
alized striving for profit at any price. The proletarian
utilitarianism is different: its objective is a happy society
in which profit will be divorced from exploitation, and the
fulfillment of all human needs will be the only guidepost
for action; thus, the concept of "practical advantages"
must be redefined. New proletarian demands are not
changeless; they always result from the actual social
situation which is thus the only source of intimation for art,
what should construction and beauty be like. The parvenu
antagonism between art and life, art and reality, will be
overcome in future in the same manner, as the division
between theory and practice has been overcome in Marx-
ism.
Andrzej Turowski
Teresa Zarnower
Born in Warsaw in 1895; died in New York in 1950. In 1920
graduated from the sculpture department of the School
of Fine Arts in Warsaw.
She worked in close cooperation with Mieczystaw Szczu-
ka. According to Szczuka's testimony, Teresa Zarnower
inspired many of his undertakings, initiated the setting up
of the Blok group and greatly contributed to the formula-
tion of its programme . But Szczuka's dynamic activity
overshadowed her important contribution. We do not know
her earliest paintings, exhibited in Vilna in 1923 and at a
joint exhibition of her and Szczuka's works in Der Sturm
gallery in Berlin. On the basis of reviews one can assume
that these included the first geometrical typographic com-
positions with interspersed thin lines which gave them a
dynamic value, and perhaps the first abstract sculptures
 containing oppositional convex-concave planes, known
from reproductions printed in "Blok". Teresa Zarnower's
works made after 1924 are characterized by rigorous geo-
metrical divisions. At that time the artist's preoccupation
with problems of purely sculptural composition started to
diminish. Till the end of the 1930s she occupied herself
with stage design, typography, book and press design,
photomontage and architectural design. Such characteris-
tic features of the Russian avant-garde printing art of that
time as geometrical type design , contrasting limitation of
the colour range, bold divisions of the surface into large
blocks, may be found in her book covers for Ehrenburg's
and Mayakovsky 's works and in graphic designs for such
leftwing periodicals as "Dzwignia" and " Miesi~cznik Lite-
racki". Teresa Zarnower's social commitment and her pro-
communist attitudes found their expression in numerous
propagandist posters, the most important of which is a
sieries of posters made during the election campaign of
1928. In order to strengthen their expressive force she
enriched their geometrically and contrastingly divided sur-
faces with violently realistic pieces of photomontage . Her
cover to Anatol Stern 's poem " Europa" , a key work of Po-
lish constructivism, was also a photomontage . The books
graphic design was the work of Mieczystaw Szczuka.
Teresa Zarnower's numerous architectural projects were
also closely linked with Szczuka 's concepts. The most inter-
esting of these designs is their joint project of dwelling
quarters - "Garden houses in garden towns" - integrated
with their environment in the manner of Le Corbusier's
projects.
Mieczystaw Szczuka 's death in 1927 interrupted Teresa
Zarnower's artistic activity . Being unable to find herself
a suitable place in the country's artistic life she left Poland
in 1937. After staying for some time in western Europe she
went to Canada during the war, and finally settled in New
York. The war was for her a new tragedy It was then that
she resumed her creative work making, among others, a
series of photomontage pictures for the Polish emigre
publication "Obrona Warszawy" (The Defence of Warsaw).
The dramatic content of these sketches outbalanced strict
constructivist divisions . The same is true of a monumental
bas-relief devoted to the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto
which she started in the last days of the Second World
War. Her last series of gouache paintings exhibited in New
York after the war 's end is also characterized by strong
dramatic expression. Andrzej Turowski

147

Bibliography
Among source materials, only basic theoretical works,
being original or first formulations of artistic doctrines have
been selected; lexicon entries, minor contributions, book
and exhibition reviews and local polemics have been
omited.
From texts written by poets, only papers concerning the
plastic arts are included. In Part II of the Bibliography,
bringing a selection of literature commenting Polish con-
structivism , stress has been laid upon the most recent
works, with their own bibliographies and often supple-
mented by summaries in foreign languages .
I. Source Material
1. Periodicals, books and catalogues
Source material - on Polish constructivism is rather scat-
tered; a few texts have been reprinted in Polish and
even fewer have been fragmentarily translated into West
European languages. Many statements by artists have
been extant in unique copies of broadsides, periodicals or
books . Among them, the most significant and valuable are
the eleyen issues of the magazine "Blok" (1924-1926), two
issues of the magazine "Praesens " (1926, 1930) and two
communications of the "a. r." group (1930, 1932). Besides,
constructivists used to publish their works in many periodi-
cals dedicated to literary and social issues.
Among the catalogues of exhibitions in which Polish
constructivists have participated, the most significant for
our knowledge about the development of the movement
are:
1. "Wystawa Nowej Sztuki" (with programme statements
by artists); Wilno 1923.
2. "Almanach". Katalog. Salon Modernist6w, Warszawa
1928.
3. "Kata log Dziatu Sztuki". Powszechna Wystawa Krajowa,
Poznan 1929.
4. "Mi~dzynarodowa Kolekcja Sztuki Nowoczesnej. Kata-
log Nr 2", l6dz 1932.
148
86 Jalu Kurek, from the film OR, 1933
2. Statements and articles by artists
Henryk Berlewi
1. "Mechano-faktura", Warszawa 1924.
Jan Brz~kowski
1. "Kil ometrage de la peinture contemporaine 1908-1930",
Paris 1931; idem: "L'Art Contemporain - Sztuka Wsp6t-
czesna" 1929 No 1, p. 2-6; 1930 No 2, p. 50-53; 1930 No 3,
p. 82-84, 91-93.
2. Przeciw Picassowi. lbedem, 1930 No 3, p.103-104.
3. Inc. Apres une vingtaine d'annees de recherche pour
etablir !'art nouveau ... , "Cercle et Carre", 1930 No 1, p. 4.
4. Pour le film abstrait. Ibidem, 1930 No 3, p.11-12.
5. Nowa sztuka na Zachodzie. In: J. Brz~kowski, L. Chwis-
tek, P. Smolik, W. Strzemir'lski "O sztuce nowoczesnej",
Lodz 1934.
Karol Hiller
1. Malarstwo nowoczesne wobec epigonizmu. "Forma",
1933 No 1, p. 2-6.
2. Nowe widzenie. Ibidem, 1934, No 2, p. 3-8.
3. Heliografikajako nowy rodzaj techniki graficznej. Ibidem,
1934, No 2, p. 21-23.
4. Malarz, spoteczer'lstwo a sztuka. Ibidem, 1935, No 3,
p.2-3.
Katarzyna Kobro
1. Rzezba i bryta. "Europa", 1929, No 2, p. 60.
2. (Together with W. Strzemir'lski) "Kompozycja przestrzeni,
obliczanie rytmu czasoprzestrzennego", l6dz 1931.
3. Inc. L'action de sculpteur, un nu donne des emotions
d'ordre psychologique ou sexuel ... , "Abstraction Crea-
tion" 1933, No 2, p. 27.
4. Inc. Moja rzezba ... "Forma" 1935, No 3, p. 14.
5. Funkcjbnalizm. Ibidem, 1936, No 4, p. 9-13.
6. Inc. Rzezba stanowi cz~s6 przestrzeni ... , "Gtos Plasty-
k6w" 1937, No 1-7, p.4 2-43.
Witold Kajruksztis
1. Inc. Podstawq - sine qua non - sztuki jest konstrukcja.
In "Wystawa Nowej Sztuki" (a cat.) Wilno 1923, p. 11-16.
2. 0 konstrukcji w malarstwie. "Wiek XX" 1928, No 9, p. 5.
 Tadeusz Peiper
1. "T~dy" . Warszawa 1930; idem: "T~dy" . "Nowe usta".
Krakow 1972.
Julian Przybos
The most significant papers reprinted in: " Linia i gwar",
Krakow 1959, vol. I.
Henryk Stazewski
1. 0 sztuce abstrakcyjnej . "Blok" 1924, No 8-9.
2. Styl wspofczesnosci. " Praesens" 1926, No 1, p. 2-3
(summary, p. 16-17) .
3. Sztuki plastyczne jako streszczenie i:ycia kulturalnego.
"Europa" 1929, No 3, p. 87-88.
4. Inc. L'homme nouveau sait voir le monde vide d'ob-
jets . .. , " Cercle et Carre" 1930, No 1.
5. Von der jungsten polnischen Kunst. " Slavische Rund-
schau" 1931, p. 329-331 .
6. Inc . L'Art plastique comme resume de la vie culturelle . . .,
"Abstraction - Creation" 1932, No 1, p. 34-35.
7. Inc. Ni le classicisme , ni le romantisme et l'impressio-
nisme . . .:, "Abstraction - Creation" 1932, p. 39.
8. Epigoni modernizmu i krytycy rutynisci. "Wiadomosci
literackie " 1933, No 32, p. 4.
9. Nowa sztuka a spuscizna epok minionych . "Pion" 1933,
No 5, p. 4-5 .
Wfadysfaw Strzemitiski
1. 0 sztuce rosyjskiej. "Zwrotnica" 1922, No 3, p. 79-82;
1923, No 4, p. 110-114.
2. Inc. Okreslan sztuk~ ... , In: " Wystawa Nowej Sztuki"
(a cat.), Wilna 1923, p. 19-21 .
3. (Unsigned) Po - suprematyzm. Sprzecznosci w supre-
matyzmie . Ku pfaskosci w malarstwie. "Blok" 1924, No 1.
4. B = 2. Ibidem , 1924 No 8-9.
5. Przedmiot i przestrzeri. "Wiek XX", 1928, No 21, p. 2-3.
6. "Unizm w malarstwie" Warszawa 1928; idem : Dualizm i
unizm . "Droga " 1927, No 6-7 , p. 211-225 ; idem: reedited
in: " Artysci o sztuce" (E. Grabska, H. Morawska eds.) .
Warszawa 1963 p. 448-467.
7. (Together with S. Syrkus) Terazniejszosc w architekturze
i malarstwie " Przeglc1dArtystyczny" 1928, No 4, p. 5-8.
8. Bilans modernizmu. "Europa" 1929, No 1, p. 22-24 .
9. Fotomontai: wynalazkiem polskim. Ibidem, p. 29.
10. Dramatyzm i architectonizm. "L'Art Contemporain
Sztuka Wspofczesna" 1930, No 3, p. 93.
11. Letters to J. Przybos from the years 1929-1936, MS in
the Library of lnstitut Sztuki, Pol. Ac . Sc., Warsaw.
12. (Unsigned) inc. Grupa "a. r." podejmuje walk~ ... ,
"Kommunikat grupy 'a. r.' No 1" 1930.
13. (Unsigned) Architektonizm mody. "Architektura i Bud-
ownictwo" 1931, No 11, p. 342-343.
14. (Together with K. Kobro) "Kompozycia przestrzeni,
obliczanie rytmu czasoprzestrzennego" lodz 1931.
15. Zasady nowej architektury. "Linia" 1931, No 3, p. 68-69.
16. Sztuka nowoczesna a szkofy artystyczne. "Droga" ,
1932, No 3, p. 258-278.
17. Inc. La ou ii ya une division ... , "Abstraction Creation"
1932, No 1, p. 35.
18. Druk funkcjonalny. "Grafika" 1933. No 2, p. 37-45.
19. Dyskusja o "a. r.'', " Zagary " 1934, No 3/4, p. 6.
20. Sztuka nowoczesna w Polsce. In: J. Brz~kowski , L.
Chwistek, P. Smolik, W. Strzemiriski "O sztuce nowoczes-
nej", Lodz 1934.
21. Discussion L. Chwistek - W. Strzemiriski. " Forma"
1935, No 3, p. 4-10 .
22. "Theoria widzenia", Krakow 1958.
Szymon Syrkus
1. Preliminarz architektury. "Praesens" 1926, No 1, p. 5-14.
2. Tempo architektury . Ibidem. 1930, No 2, p. 7-29 .
Mieczysfaw Szczuka
1. Inc. Reakcja otoczenia ... , " Zwrotn ica" 1923, No 4, p. 8 ;
a fragment in: "Wystawa Nowej Sztuki " (a cat.), Wilna 1923,
p. 21.
2. (Unsigned) inc. Likwidujemy ostatecznie ... , " Blok"
1924, No 1.
3. (Unsigned) inc. Odczuwa si~ w cafoksztafcie i:ycia ...
Ibidem.
4. (Unsigned) inc. Artysta tworzy dzuefa bezinteresow-
nie . .. Ibidem, No 2.
5. Inc. Proba wyjasnienia nieporozumieri ... Ibidem.
6. (Unsigned) perhaps in collab. with T. Zarnower) Co to
jest konstruktywizm. Ibidem , No. 6/ 7.
7. Czego chce Blok. " Reflektor" 1925, No. 2, p. 19.
8. Domy-ogrody w miastach orgrodach. "Dzwignia" 1927,
No 1, p. 47-48.
9. Pozgonne suprematyzmu Ibidem, No 2/ 3, p. 33-35.
10. Sztuka a rzeczywistosc. Ibidem No 4, p. 12-18.
149

Teresa :2:arnower
1. Inc. Ch~c zbadania niezbadanego ... In: "Wystawa
Nowej Sztuki" (a cat.), Wilno 1923, p. 22-23.
3. Memoirs
1. Jan Brz~kowski, "W Krakowie i Paryi:u". (Wspomnienia
i szkice), Warszawa 1968.
2. Jan Brz~kowski, "La collection de l'art moderne du
groupe 'a. r.' - quelques souvenirs". In: "Grupa 'a. r.', 40-
lecie Mi~dzynarodowej Kolekcji Sztuki Nowoczesnej w
lodzi " . (exh . cat.) Museum Sztu ki, Lodz, 1971.
3. Jalu Kurek, "Moj Krakow", Krakow 1963.
4. Marian Minich, "Szalona Galeria", Lodz 1962.
5. Aleksander Rafatowski, "I z poza palety", Warszawa
1972.
II. Other publications
No comprehensive work concerning Polish constructivism
has been published until now. Between the two wars, critics
failed to supply more extensive papers on artists belonging
to Blok, Praesens and "a. r."; exhibition reviewers have
not attempted any fuller analysis of their works. It was only
the more systematic researches on extant source materials,
continued since the late nineteen-fifties, that have shed
some light upon the avantgarde movement. Exhibitions of
individual artists, organized mainly in the Art Museum in
Lodz, provided occasions to publish scholarly elaborated
catalogues presenting the Polish avantgarde.
1. General Essais
1. Helena Zaworska, "O nowc:1sztuk~ (1917-1922)", Wars-
zawa 1963.
2. Andrzej Lam, "Polska awangarda poetycka. Programy z
lat 1917-1923" (An anthology) Vol. I, II, Krakow 1969.
3. Joanna Pollakowna, "Formisci". Warszawa 1972.
4. "Katarzyna Kobro, Wtadystaw Strzemiriski" (An exh .
cat.) (Texts by: Julian Przybos, Stefan Wegner, Wtadystaw
Strzemiriski: "Unizm w malarstwie", Wtadystaw Strzemiriski
and Katarzyna Kobro: "Kompozycja przestrzeni" - frag-
ments). Lodz, 1956-1957.
5. "Precurseurs de l'art abstrait en Pologne" (Kasimir
Malevich, Henryk Berlewi, Katarzyna Kobro, Wtadystaw
150
87 Jalu Kurek, from the film OR, 1933
Strzemiriski, Henry Stai:ewski (exh. cat.) Texts by: Jean
Cassou, Julian Przybos, Henryk Berlewi. Galerie Denise
Rene, Paris 1957.
6. Marian Minich, Muzeum Sztuki w lodzi. In: "Rocznik
Muzeum Sztuki w lodzi, 1930-1962" (Summary, ii. 123)
todz 1965.
7. Pierre Restany, Le Musee d'Art de Lodz, Pologne, L'lndex
d'un humanisme sans frontiere. "Domus" 1968 No 461.
8. "Peinture moderne polonaise. Sources et recherches".
(exh. cat.) Texts by: Mieczystaw Por~bski, exhibition
manager: Ryszard Stanistawski. Musee Galliera, Paris
1969.
9. Gerald Gassiot-Talabot, Peinture moderne polonaise.
"Les Nouvelles Litteraires" 1969, No 2170.
10. "Grupa 'a. r.'. 40-lecie ,Mi~dzynarodowej Kolekcji Sztuki
Nowoczesnej w lodzi". (An exh. cat. ed. by: Ryszard
Stanistawski.) Texts in Polish and French by Ryszard
Stanistawski, Jan Brz~kowski and others; Biographies, a
Chronicle, a Bibliography, a full set of reproductions of
works belonging to the collection by 1932. Muzeum Sztuki,
todz 1971.
11. Ryszard Stanistawski, 40-lecie zbiorow sztuki nowoc-
zesnej w lodzi (In French and English) "Projekt" 1971,
No.84.
12. Michel Seuphor, "Cercle et Carre". Paris 1971, p. 24-26.
13. Michel Seuphor, "L'Art abstrait", Vol. 2, Paris 1972,
p.89-95.
14. Gladys Fabre, La Pologne - temoin 1930. "Connais-
sance des arts" 1972, No. 241.
2. Artistic Groups
Blok
1. "Precurseurs de l'art abstrait en Pologne" · (exh. cat.)
Galerie Denise Rene, Paris 1957.
2. Henryk Berlewi, Funktionelle Grafik der zwanziger Jahre
in Polen. "Neue Grafik" 1961, No 9.
3. Andrzej Olszewski, Z problematyki architektury dwu-
dziestolecia mi~dzywojennego w Polsce. Koncepcja archi-
tektury w kr~gu ideologii grupy Blok. In: "Z zagadnieri
plastyki polskiej w latach 1918-1939", Wroctaw 1963.
4. Boi:ena Lewandowska, U zrodet grafiki funkcjonalej w
Polsce. In: "Ze studiow nad genezc:1plastyki nowoczesnej
w Polsce", Wroctaw 1966.
Kazimierz Podsadecki , Composition 1927
5. Andrzej Turowski, Geneza i program teoretyczny grupy
artystow Blok 1924-1926 . " Zeszyty naukowe UAM. Historia
sztuki No 4" Poznan 1966.
Praesens
1. lzabella Wislocka, "Awangardowa architektura polska
1918-1939", Warszawa 1968.
2. Jan Minorski, " Polska nowatorska mysl architektoniczna
w latach 1918-1939", Warszawa 1970.
3. Piotr Krakowski , Recepcja Bauhausu w architekturze
polskiej dwudziestolecia mi~dzywojennego . In : "SztukaXX
wieku" Warszawa 1971.
"a. r."
1. Zofia Baranowicz, Poczqtki mi~dzynarodowe j kolekcji
sztuki nowoczesnej w Lodzi. " Biuletyn Historii Sztuki"
1969, No 4.
2. Anna Lab~cka, Kronika grupy " a. r.". In : "Grupa 'a. r.'
40-lecie mi~dzynarodowej kolekcji sztuki nowoczesnej w
Lodzi" (exh. cat.). Muzeum Sztuki , Lodi:, 1971.
3. Artists
Henryk Berlewi
1. " Henryk Berlewi " (An exh. cat.) Texts by: Will Grohmann,
Maurice Besset , a bibliography, Maison de France , Berlin
1964. (In German .)
2. Andrzej Olszewski, "Henryk Berlewi", Warszawa 1968.
Karol Hiller
1. Urszula Chartoryska , Chodzi o zrewoltowanie materi i ...
" Wspolczesnos6" 1965, No. 4.
2. " Karol Hiller 1891-1939" . (exh . cat.) Texts by : Maria
G. Rubczynska, Jan ina Ladnowska and others , a chrono-
logy in French , a catalogue of works, a bibliography, 112
ii., Muzeum Sztuki, Lodi: 1967.
Katarzyna Kobro
1. Carola Giedion -Welcker , "Moderne Plastik . Elemente
der Wirklichkeit, Masse und Auflockerung ", Zurich 1937.
2. "Katarzyna Kobro , Wladyslaw Strzeminski " (exh. cat.),
Lodi: 1956-1957 .
3. Julian Przybos , Nowa przestrzen. In: " Linia i gwar" .
Krakow 1959, Vol. 1, p. 231-244.
4. Janusz Zagrodzki, Katarzyna Kobro. In: "Grupa 'a. r.'
40-lecie mi~dzynarodowej kolekcji sztuki nowoczesnej w
Lodzi", Muzeum Sztuki, 1971.
Maria Niez-Borowiak
1. Andrzej Turowski, Tworczos6 Marii Nicz-Borowiakowej.
1896-1944. "Studia muzealne", 1966, No 5.
Tadeusz Peiper
1. Janusz Slawinski, "Koncepcja j~zyka poetyckiego
awangardy krakowskiej", Wroclaw 1965.
2. Stanislaw Jaworski, "U podstaw awangardy. Tadeusz
Peiper - pisarz i teoretyk", Krakow 1968.
Julian Przybos
1. Janusz Slawinski, "Koncepcja j~zyka poetyckiego
awangardy krakowskiej", Wroclaw 1965.
2. Jerzy Kwiatkowski, "Swiat poetycki Juliana Przybosia",
Warszawa 1972.
Aleksander Rafafowski
1. "Aleksander Rafalowski" (An exh. cat.) Text by: Ksawery
Piwocki Warszawa 1961.
Henryk Stazewski
1. Hanna Ptaszkowska, "Henryk Stai:ewski", Warszawa
1965.
2. " Henryk Stazewski" (exh. cat.) Galeria Foksal, War-
szawa, 1969.
3. "Henryk Stazewski" (exh. cat.) Texts by: Hanna Ptasz-
kowska, Wieslaw Borowski, Janina Ladnowska, (biblio-
graphy in English), Muzeum Sztuki, lodi: 1969.
4. Janina Ladnowska, Henryk Stai:ewski - tworczos6 i
poglqdy z lat 1920-1939 In: " Grupa 'a. r.' 40-lecie mi~dzy-
narodowej kolekcji sztuki nowoczesnej w lodzi" Muzeum
Sztu ki, Lodz 1971.
Wfadysfaw Strzeminski
1. Julian Przybos, Nowatorstwo Wladyslawa Strzemins-
kiego. In: "Linia i gwar", Krakow 1959, Vol. p. 127-136.
2. "Katarzyna Kobro , Wladyslaw Strzeminski" (exh. cat.)
Lodi: 1956-1957.
3. Stefan Morawski, Teoria Strzeminskiego pro i contra.
"Przeglqd Humanistyczny" 1958 No 4.
4. Henryk Anders, Wladyslaw Strzeminski i jego krqg. In:
" Sztuka Wspofczesna" Vol. II, Krakow 1966.
153
 88 Kazimierz Podsadecki, Cover of the magazine Linia
(Line) 1931, No 1

LINJA Mieczystaw Szczuka , Typography of BLOK, 1924, No 1, p. 3 .,.

maj 1931
krakow
nnmer l

.......... awangardy llteraeldeJ

5. Andrzej Turowski, Strzemir'lski i poezja . "Poezja" 1969,

No 5.
6. Andrzej Turowski, Strzemir'lski, Grupa "a. r." i wsp6t-
czesni. In: "Grupa 'a. r.',40-lecie Mi~dzynarodowej Kolekcji
Sztuki Nowoczesnej w lodzi". Muzeum Sztuki, l6dz 1971.
7. Andrzej Turowski, Konstruktywistyczna typografia Wta-
dystawa Strzemir'lskiego, "Projekt" 1971, No 4.
8. Andrzej Turowski, Konstruktywizm Wtadystawa Strze-
mir'lskiego . In: "Sztuka XX wieku", Warszawa 1971.
9. Andrzej Turowski, Strzemir'lski and the Constructivist
Avant-Garde 1923-1933. "Polish Art Rewiew" 1972, No 2.
10. Andrzej Turowski, Unizm i architektonizm. "Poezja",
1972, No 9.

Mieczyslaw Szczuka
1. Anatol Stern, Mieczystaw Berman, "Mieczystaw Szczu-
ka", Warszawa 1965.
2. Andrzej Turowski, Doktryna artystyczna Mieczystawa
Szczuki. "Przeglqd Humanistyczny" 1971, No 1.

Teresa Zarnower
1. Anatol Stern, Mieczystaw Berman, "Mieczystaw Szczu-
ka", Warszawa 1965, passim .

prepared by Andrzej Turowski

154
 Catalogue

Abbreviations Minich, 0 nowq organizacjE1

Numbers in brackets refer to catalogues mentioned in the
list of abbreviations.
"a. r."
- Katalog MiE1 dzynarodowej Sztuk i Nowoczesnej - daru
grupy " a. r." . In : "Grupa 'a. r.' 40-lecie MiE1dzynarodowej
Kolekcji Sztuki Nowoczesnej w todzi" Muzeum Sztuki w
todzi, t6dz 1971 (exh . cat)
Femtio ar polsk maleri
- " Femtion ar polsk maleri " Kungl. Konstakademien,
Stockholm 1959 (exh. cat)
50 ans de peinture
- " 50 ans de peinture polonaise" Musee d'Art et d'His-
toire, Brussel 1959 (no exh. cat)
Hiller
- "Karol Hiller 1891-1939 " Muzeum Sztuki w todzi, t.6dz
1967 (exh . cat)
Kobro Strzemiriski
- "Katarzyna Kobro Wtadystaw Strzemiriski" Centralne
Biuro Wystaw Artystycznych, t6dz 1956-1957 (exh. cat.)
Kompozycja przestrzeni
- Katarzyna Kobro Wtadystaw Strzemiriski, Kompozycja
przestrzeni, obliczenia rytmu czasoprzestrzennego. t6dz
1931
tadnowska
- Janina tadnowska, Henryk Stazewski - tw6rczos6 i
poglqdy z lat 1920-1939. In: " Grupa 'a. r.' 40-lecie MiE1d-
zynarodowej Kolekcji Sztuki Nowoczesnej w todzi" Mu-
ze~m Sztuki w todzi , t6dz 1971 (exh. cat)
MiE1dzynarodowa Kolekcja
- " MiE1dzynarodowa Kolekcja Sztuk i Nowoczesnej. Ka-
talog Nr. 2" Miejsk ie Muzeum Historii i Sztuki im. J. i K.
Bartoszewicz6w w todz i, t6dz 1932 (exh. cat.)
Minich, Metoda ekspozycji
- Marian Minich, Metoda ekspozycji. In: "Rocznik Muze-
um Sztuki 1930-1962 " t6dz 1965
- Marian Minich, 0 nowq organizacjE/ muze6w sztuki. In:
"Sztuka wsp6tczesna II" Krakow 1966
Peinture
- " Peinture moderne polonaise. Sources et recherches "
Musee Galliera, Paris 1969 (exh. cat)
Precurseurs
- " Precurseurs de l'art abstra it en Pologne " Galerie
Denise Rene, Paris 1957 (exh. cat.)
"Przeglqd Artystyczny" 1957
- 0 Wtadystawie Strzem iriski. " Przeglqd artystyczny "
1957 No 1
"Przeglqd artiystyczny " 1958
Andrzej Jakimowicz , Kron ika polskiej awangardy 1912-
1957". " Przeglqd artystyczny " 1958 No 1
Strzemiriski Rysunki
- "Wtadystaw Strzemiriski. Rysunka ze zbior6w Muzeum
Sztuki w todzi" Muzeum Sztuki w todzi , t.6dz 1968 (no
exh. cat.)
1112.G.
- " Ill Zlote Grono " Muzeum Ziemi Lubuskiej Zielona
Gora 1967 (no exh . cat.)
Turowski
- Andrzej Turowski, Strzemiriski grupy "a . r." i wsp6tc-
zesni. In: " Grupa 'a. r.' 40-lecie MiE1dzynarodowej Kolekcji
Sztuki Nowoczesnej w todzi" Muzeum Sztuki w todzi,
t6dz 1971 (exh . cat.)
Utkin
- Bolestaw Utkin, Kompozycje przestrzenno-rzezbiarskie
Katarzyny Kobro. "Ochrona zabytk6w " 1972 No 3 pp. 203-
206
Zagrodzki
- Janusz Zagrodzki, Katarzyna Kobro. In: "Grupa 'a. r.'
40-lecie MiE1dzynarodowej Kolekcji Sztuki Nowoczesnej w
todzi " Muzeum Sztuki w todzi, t6dz 1971 (exh. cat.)

157
Henryk Berlewi Repr . Wiesfaw Borowski , Karol Hiller. " Zycie i mysl " 1964
No 3-4 p. 188
1
Mechano Faktur Construction (black, white and red) 1924 7
Signed "M. F. Berlewi 24" b. r. Heliographic Composition XIII c. 1937
gouacl1e on paper, 98 x 81 cm Signed " K. Hiller " b. r.
MS/ SN/Rys / 122 photograph , 40 x 29 cm
MS/SN/ GR/ 110
Exh. H. Berlewi - Mechano Faktura, Salon Austro-Daimler,
Warszawa 1924 (no exh. cat.); Precurseurs (5), repr. Exh. Hiller (71); Peinture (13)
Repr . "Blok " 1924 No 1 p. 2; Rozmowa z H. Berlewi ,
" Wsp6fczesnos6 " 1958 No 22; Julian Przybos, Ku nowemu
8
Heliographic Composition XIV c. 1937
widzeniu, " Przeglqd kulturalny " 1958 No 3; H. Berlewi ,
Not signed
Functional Design of the Twenties in Poland, Special of
photograph, 39,5 x 29,5 cm
" Neue Grafik" 1961 No 9 (17); " Przeglqd artystyczny "
MS/ SN/ GR/ 111
1962 No 5 (news) p. 67; "Retrospektive Ausstellung H.
Berlewi Gemalde Zeichnungen Grafik Mechano-Fakturen Exh. Hiller (72) repr. ; Peinture (14)
Plastik von 1908 bis heute", Maison de France, Berlin 1964
exh . cat. p. 6 (25); Minich, 0 nowq organizacj~. p. 118 9
(28), p. 130 (39); Andrzej K. Olsewski, Henryk Berlewi , Heliographic Composition XVI c.1937
Warszawa 1968 (5) in colour Signed "K . Hi ller " b. r.
photograph , 40 x 30 cm
MS/ SN/ GR/113
Exh. Hiller (74)
Repr. Urszula Czartoryska , Przygody plastyczne fotografi i.
Warszawa 1965 p. 74
Karol Hiller
10
Heliographic Composition XIX c. 1938
2
Signed " K. Hiller " b. r.
Heliographic Composition VII 1934
photograph , 39,5 x 29,5 cm
Signed " K. Hiller / 34" b. r.
MS/ SN/ GR/ 116
photograph , 40 x 30 cm
MS/ SN/ GR/ 104 Exh. Hiller (77); Peinture (18)
Exh. Hiller (64); Peinture (10)
11
Heliog raphic Composition XXX 1939
3
Sig ned "K. H./39" b. r.
Heliograph ic Composition IX c. 1934
photograph , 40 x 30 cm
Signed "K . Hiller " b. r.
MS/ SN/ GR/126
photograph , 40 x 30 cm
MS/SN/GR/106 Exh. Hiller (88) repr .; Peinture (22)
Exh. Hiller (66); Peinture (11)

4
Heliographic Composition X 1935
Signed " K. Hiller" b. r.
Katarzyna Kobro
photograph , 23 x 17 cm
MS/SN/GR / 107
Exh. Hiller (68) 12
Suspended Composition 1 1921 (1972)
Repr . Marian Minich , Malarstwo Karola Hillera . "Wymiary"
Not signed
1938 p. 72; Urszula Czartorysl<a , Przygody plastyczne foto-
fibreglass , epoxide resin , metal, wood, 20 x 40 x 40 cm
grafii. Warszawa 1965 p. 73; " Poezja " 1967 No 1 p. 57
Reconstructed by Bolesfaw Utkin 1972
MS/SN/ R/156
5
Heliographic Composition XI c. 1935 Lit. Utkin
Not signed Repr . " Blok " 1924 No 1 p. 3; Kompozycja przestrzeni (20);
photograph , 32,5 x 29,5 cm
Zagrodzki (24)
MS/SN/ GR/108
Exh. Hiller (69) repr.; Peinture (12) 13
Suspended Composition 2 1921/ 22 (1971)
Repr . "Przeglqd artystyczny " 1958 p. 23
Not signed
Steel, 43 x 28 cm
6 Reconst ructed by Bolesfaw Utkin and Janusz Zagrodzki
Heliographic Composition XII c. 1935
1971
Not signed
MS/SN / R/ 142
photograph , 40 x 30 cm
MS/ SN/GR/ 203 Lit. Utk in
Exh. Hiller (70) Repr . " Blok " 1924 No 1 p. 2

158
 14 Exh. Kobro Strzem inski (4); Precurseurs (4); " Sztuka war-
Abstract Composition c. 1924 szawska od sredniowiecza do pofowy XX w" Muzeum
Not signed Narodowe, Warszawa 1962 (exh. cat.); Peinture (47)
Oil on glass, 24 x 32 cm
Repr. Kompozycja przestrzeni (35); Katarzyna Kobro,
MS/ SN/ M/44
Rzezba stanowi cz~s6 przestrzeni. "Glos plastyk6w" 1937
Exh. Mi~dzynarodowa Kolekcja (42); Kobro Strzeminski No 1-7 p. 43; Min ich, 0 nowq organizacj~ (33); Zagrodzki
(13) (34)
Repr . " Praesens " 1926 No 1 p. 21; "a. r." (49)
21
15 Space Composition 3 1928
Abstract Sculpture 1 1924 Not signed
Not signed Painted steel , 40 x 64 x 40 cm
Glass, metal, wood, 72 x 17,5 x 15,5 cm MS/ SN/R/ 17
MS/SN/R/6
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Precurseurs; " Modrian de Stijl
Exh. Mi~dzynarodowa Kolekcja (41, repr.); Kobro Strze- and their impac t" Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York
minski (7) repr . 2; Precurseurs (7) repr. 1964 (81) repr.; Peinture (48) repr.
Repr . " Blok" 1924 No 8-9; "Przeglqd artystyczny " 1958 Repr. Kompozycja przestrzeni (38, 39) ; Katarzyna Kobro ,
p. 15; Minich, 0 nowq organizacj~ (22); Zagrodzki (28); Funkcjonal izm , " Forma " 1936 No 4 pp. 12, 13; "Przeglqd
"a. r." (48); Gladys Fabre, La Pologne temoin pour 1930. artystyczny" 1957 No 1 (news) p. 53; Pierre Restany, Le
" Connaissance des arts" 1972 No 241 p. 105 in colour Musee d'Art de Lodz , Pologne. L'index d'un humanisme
sans frontiere. "Domus " 1968, No 461; Zagrodzki (31, 35)
16
Abstract Sculpture 2 c. 1924 (1972)
Not signed 22
Metal, wood, 70 x 28 x 21 cm Space Composition 4 1929
Reconstructed by Bo lesfaw Utkin and Janusz Zagrodzki Not signed
1972 Painted steel, 40 x 64 x 40 cm
MS/ SN/ R/150 MS/SN/R/18

Repr. "Praesens " 1926 No 1 p. 21; Utkin Exh. Kobro Strzeminski (5) repr .; Precurseurs ; Peinture (49)
Repr. Kompozycja przestrzeni (36, 37); Fly sheet "a. r." 2,
17 l6dz 1932 p. 1; Minich, O nowq organizacj~ (35); Jerzy
Abstract Sculpture 3 c. 1924 (1972) Olkiewicz , Museum der modernen Kunst , "Polen " 1968
Not signed No 3 (3) in colour
Metal, wood, plastic, glass, 65 x 24 x 22 cm
Reconstructed by on Bolesfaw Utkin 1972
MS/ SN/ R/ 167 23
Space Composition 5 1929/30
Lit. Utkin Not signed
Repr. " Praesens " 1926 No 1 p. 20; "Forma" 1933 No 1 p. Painted steel, 25 x 64 x 40 cm
11; Zagrodzki (27) MS/ SN/R/19
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski (3) repr. ; Precurseurs; Peinture (50)
18
Repr. Kompozycja przestrzeni (46); "Abstraction-Creation "
Space Sculpture 1925 (1967)
1933 No 2 p. 27; Zagrodzki (36)
Not signed
Steel, wood, 50 x 78 x 56 cm
Reconstruction with use the recovered fragment by Bo- 24
lesfaw Utkin and Janusz Zagrodzki 1967 Space Composition 6 1931
MS/ SN/R/48 Not signed
Exh. Peinture (46) repr. Painted steel, 64 x 25 x 15 cm
MS/ SN/R/1
Repr . Kompozycja przestrzeni (17); " Poezja" 1969 No 9
Exh. Kobro Strzem inski (repr.4); Precurseurs (repr.); Pein-
p. 82; Katarzyna Baley, Szalona galeria. "Ty i Ja " 1969
ture (51) repr . in colour
No 9 p.18; Zagrodzki (29)
Repr. "Przeglqd artys tyczny" 1958 p. 21; Mieczysfaw Wal-
19 lis, Sztuka polska dwudziestolecia . Warszawa 1959 (93);
Space Composit ion 1 1925 Minich, 0 nowq organizacj~ (34); Forty Years of the Con-
Not signed temporary Art Collection in l6dz. "Projekt" 1971 No 5
Painted steel, 14 x 53,5 x 39,5 cm (3) in colour
MS/ SN/ R/15
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski (2); Precurseurs (2) 25
Space Composition 7 1931 (1973)
Repr . Kompozycja przestrzeni (33); Zagrodzki (30)
Not signed
Painted steel, 12 x 64 x 16 cm
20
Reconstructed by Barbara Brzezinska , Lech Siemiono-
Space Composition 2 1928
wicz , Janusz Zagrodzki 1973
Not signed
MS/ SN/ R/ 169
Painted steel, 50 x 50 x 50 cm
MS/ SN/R/16 Repr. "Abstraction-Creation" 1933 No 2 p. 27

159
 26 30
Space Composition 8 c. 1932 Textured Composition 1930/31
Not signed Not signed
Painted steel, 10 x 24 x 15 cm Oil on canvas, 70 x 80 cm
MS/SN/R/42 MS/SN/M/40
Exh. "Salon plastyk6w" lnstytut Propagandy Sztuki, War- Exh. Mi~dzynarodowa Kolekcja (60) repr.; "Poolse schil-
szawa 1936 exh. cat. repr. derkunst van nu" Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1959
exh. cat. (49); "Polsk maleri" Frederiksberg Raadhus, K0-
Repr. Katarzyna Kobro, Dia ludzi niezdolnych do mys-
benhavn 1959 exh . cat. (46); "Construction and geometry
lenia ... "Forma" 1935 No 3 p.14; "Abstraction-Creation"
in painting" Galerie Chalette, New York 1960 exh . cat.
1935 No 4 p.19; Wtadystaw Strzeminski, Aspekty rzeczy-
(93); "Sztuka warszawska od sredniowiecza do polowy
wistosci. "Forma" 1936 No 5 p. 11; Zagrodzki (32); Adam
XX w". Muzeum Narodowe, Warszawa 1962 exh. cat. (87)
Kotula Piotr Krakowski, Malarstwo rzezba architektura,
repr.; Peinture (39) repr .
Warszawa 1972 (321)
Repr. Fly sheet "a. r." 2. l6dz 1932 p. 2; Mieczystaw Wallis,
27 Sztuka polska dwudziestolecia, Warzawa 1959 (33); "Prze-
Space Composition 9 1933 glc1d artystyczny" 1959 No 4 p. 15; Minich, 0 nowc1organi-
Signed "K. Kobro" zacj~ (31); Tadeusz Dobrowolski, Malarstwo polskie 1764
Painted steel, 15,5 x 35 x 19 cm -1964. Wroclaw 1968 (243); Janina ladnowska, Biography.
MS/SN/R/43 In: "Henryk Stazewski" Muzeum Sztuki w lodzi, l6dz
1969/70 exh. cat. (8); ladnowska (51); "a. r." (79); Adam
Exh. Peinture (52)
Kotula Piotr Krakowski, Malarstwo rzezba architektura.
Repr. "Abstraction-Creaction" 1935 No 4 p.19; Carola Gie- Warszawa 1972 (163).
dion-Welcker, Moderne Plastik. Zurich 1937 (155); "Forma"
1938 No 6 p. 24; Zagrodzki (37) 30a
Composition 1934
Oil on canvas, 38 x 46 cm
Not signed
Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller, Otterlo
Henryk Stazewski (Gift of Mrs. Marguerite Arp-Hagenbach)
Repr. "a. r." (in dicated as lost)
28
Abstract painting 1 c. 1929
Not signed
Oil on canvas, 60 x 73 cm
MS/SN/M/45
Exh. "Nowa generacja" lnstytut Propagandy Sztuki, War-
Wfadysfaw Strzeminski
szawa 1932 exh. cat (98); "Grupa plastyk6w nowoczes-
nych" lnstytut Propagandy Sztuki, Warszawa, l6dz 1933
exh. cat. (44); "Mondrian de Stijl and their impact" Marl-
31
borough-Gerson Gallery, New York 1964 (82); Peinture (38)
Synthetic Composition 1 1923
Repr. "Abstraction-Creation" 1933 No 2 p. 42; "Swiat" 1934 Not signed
No 12 p.12; "Przeglc1d artystyczny" 1958 p. 23 (5); Minich Oil on canvas, 62 x 52 cm
Metoda ekspozycji (74, 83) in colour; ladnowska (48); MS/SN/M/160
"a. r." (77)
Exh. "Wystawa nowej sztuki" Wilna 1923 exh. cat. p.42
(10); Kobro Strzeminski
28a
Composition 1929 Repr. "Blok" 1924 No 1; Ibidem No 5 p. 8 (1); "Przeglc1d
Oil on canvas, 60 x 73 cm artystyczny" 1957 p. 7; "Przeglc1d artystyczny" 1958 p.16 (1)
Not signed
32
Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
Post-suprematic Composition 2 1923
(Gift of Mrs. Marguerite Arp-Hagenbach)
Not signed
Oil on canvas, 65 x 66 cm
29
MS/SN/M/157
Composition 1930
Not signed Exh. Kobro Strzeminski
Oil on canvas, 73 x 54 cm
Repr. "Blok" 1924 No 8-9 p. 4
MS/SN/M/41
Exh. Mi~dzynarodowa Kolekcja (cov. repr.); "Poolse schil- 33
derkunst van nu" Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1959 exh. Still Life 3 1925
cat. (47); "Polsk maleri" Frederiksberg Raadhus, K0ben- Not signed
havn 1959 exh. cat. (48); Peinture (37) repr. in colour; "1000 Oil on canvas, 50 x 61 cm
Years of Art in Poland" Royal Academy of Art, London MS/SN/M/175
1970 exh. cat. (396) repr.
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; "Mostra di pittura polacca con-
Repr. Minich, 0 nowc1organizacj~ (41); Janina ladnowska, temporanea" Sala Napoleonica, Venezia 1959 exh. cat.
Biography. In: "Henryk Stazewski" Muzeum Sztuki w lodzi, (65); "Pologne 50 ans de peinture" Musee d' Art et d'His-
l6dz 1969/70 exh. cat. (6); ladnowska (50); "a. r." (78) toire, Geneve 1959 exh . cat. (108) repr.

160
 34 Vol. 3 Wroctaw 1964 (79); Minich, Metoda ekspozycji (85)
Unistic Composition 4 c. 1925 in colour; Minich, 0 nowq organizacj~ (43); Turowski (14);
Signed "W. Strzeminski unizm" on reverse "a. r." (85)
Oil on canvas, 64 x 64 cm
MS/SN/M/156 40
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski Unistic Composition 10 1931
Not signed
Oil on canvas, 74 x 50 cm
35 MS/SN/M/154
Unistic Composition 5 c.1924/27
Not signed Exh. "Nowa generacja" Towarzystwo Przyjaci6t Sztuk
Oil on canvas, 64 x 40 cm Pi~knych Lw6w 1932 exh. cat.; Kobro Strzeminski; Pein-
MS/SN/M/153 ture (34)
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski Repr. Pierre Restany, La Musee d'Art de Lodz, Pologne.
L'index d'un humanisme sans frontiere, "Domus" 1968
No 461; Turowski (18)
36
Unistic Composition 6 1928
Not signed 41
Oil on canvas, 64 x 64 cm Unistic Composition 11 1931/32
MS/SN/M/158 Signed "W Strzeminski unizm" on reverse
Oil on canvas, 50 x 38 cm
Lit. Kobro Strzeminski p. 53 (1) MS/SN/M/152
Exh. "Nowa generacja" Towarzystwo Przyjaci6t Sztuk
37 Pi~knych, Lw6w 1932 exh. cat.; Kobro Strzeminski; Pre-
Unistic Composition 7 1929 curseurs (5) repr.; "Poolse schilderkunst van nu" Stedelijk
Not signed Museum, Amsterdam 1959 exh. cat. (54); "Polsk maleri"
Oil on canvas, 77 x 63 cm Frederiksberg Raadhus, K0benhavn 1959 exh. cat.; "Den
MS/SN/M/159 inre och den yttre rymden" Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Lit. Kobro Strzeminski p. 53 (2) 1965/66 exh. cat. (275) repr.; Peinture (33)
Repr. "Przeglqd artystyczny" 1958 p. 21; Turowski (15)
37a
Unistic composition 1930 41 a
Oil on canvas, 62,5 x 39 cm Architectural composition 1932
Not signed Oil on canvas, 30 x 50 cm
Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller, Otterlo Not signed
(Gift of Mrs. Marguerite Arp-Hagenbach) Collection Mrs. Marguerite Arp-Hagenbach, Solduno

38 42
Unistic Composition 8 1931/32 Unistic Composition 12 1932
Not signed Not signed
Oil on canvas, 60 x 36 cm Oil on canvas, 50 x 38 cm
MS/SN/M/72 MS/SN/M/151
Exh. "Nowa generacja" Towarzystwo Przyjaci6t Sztuk Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; 50 ans de peinture; Femtio ar
Pi~knych, Lw6w 1932 exh. cat.; Kobro Strzeminski; Pre- polsk maleri (96)
curseurs (6); 50 ans de peinture; Femtio ar polsk ma-
Repr. "Abstraction-Creation" 1935 No 4 p.10; Mieczystaw
leri (95); "Mostra di pittura polacca contemporanea" Sala
Por~bski, Sztuka naszego czasu. Warszawa 1956 (25);
Napoleonica, Venezia 1959 exh. cat. (68); "Pologne 50 ans
"Prezeglqd artystyczny" 1957 p. 10; Mieczystaw Wallis,
de peinture" Musee d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneve 1959 exh.
Sztuka polska dwudziestolecia Warszawa 1959 (32); His-
cat. (111); Peinture (32); "1000 Years of Art in Poland"
toria sztuki polskiej. Vol. 3 Krakow 1962 (202); Tadeusz
Royal Academy of Art, London 1970 exh. cat. (395)
Dobrowolski, Nowoczesne malarstwo polskie. Vol. 3 Wroc-
Repr. Minich, Metoda ekspozycji (86) in colour; Minich, taw 1964 (77); Tadeusz Dobrowolski, Malarstwo polskie
0 nowq organizacj~ (44); "a. r." (84) 1764-1964. Wroctaw 1968 (240); Katarzyna Baley, Szalona
galeria. "Ty i Ja" 1969 No 9 p. 19
39
Unistic Composition 9 1931 43
Not signed Unistic Composition 13 1934
Oil on canvas, 48 x 32 cm Not signed
MS/SN/M/43 Oil on canvas, 50 x 50 cm
MS/SN/M/150
Exh. Mi~dzynarodowa Kolekcja (63) repr.; Kobro Strze-
minski; Precurseurs (7); "Poolse schilderkunst van nu" Exh. Kobro Strzeminski (12) repr.; "Poolse schilderkunst
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1959 exh. cat. (55); "Polsk van nu" Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1959 exh. cat.
maleri" Frederiksberg Raadhus, K0benhavn 1959 exh. cat. (57); "Polsk maleri" Frederiksberg Raadhus, K0benhavn
(57) repr.; "Konkrete Kunst" (Helmhaus, Zurich 1960 exh. 1959 exh. cat. (58); "Konkrete Kunst" Helmhaus, Zurich
cat. (40) repr. Peinture (31) repr. 1960 exh. cat. (52) repr.; Peinture (36) repr. in colour
Repr. Marian Minich, Szalona galeria. l6dz 1963 p. 33; Repr. "Abstraction-Creation" 1935 No 4 p. 29; "Przeglqd
Tadeusz Dobrowolski, Nowoczesne malarstwo polskie. artystyczny" 1957 p.8; Turowski (17)

161
44 Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Precurseurs; "Poolse schilder-
Unistic Composition 14 1934 kunst van nu" Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam 1959, exh.
Not signed cat.; "Polsk maleri " Frederiksberg Raadhus, K0benhavn
Oil on canvas, 50 x 50 cm 1959 exh. cat. (55); "Konkrete Kunst" Helmhaus Zurich
MS/SN/M/149 1960 exh. cat. (40) repr.; "1000 Years of Art in Poland "
Royal Academy of Art, London 1970 exh. cat. (393)
Exh. Ko bro Strzeminski; Precurseurs (8); Peinture (35)
Repr. "Abstraction-Creation" 1932 No 1 p. 35
Repr. " Przeglqd artystyczny" 1957 p. 9; Turowski (16);
Forty Years of the Comtemporary Art Collection in t6dz.
"Projekt" 1971 No 5 (6) in colour; Gladys Fabre, La Po- 51
logne temoin pour 1930. "Connaissance des arts" 1972 Architectural Composition 7 b 1928
No 241 p.103 in colour Not signed
Oil on canvas, 96 x 60 cm
45 MS/SN/ M/ 168
Architectural Composition 1 1926
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski
Not signed
Oil on canvas , 90 x 64 cm Repr. "Abstraction-Creation " 1932 No 1 p. 35
MS/ SN/ M/ 161
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski (10) repr.; Precurseurs (1); 50 and 52
de peinture ; Femtio ar polsk maleri (97); "Construction Architektural Composition 8 b 1928/29
and geometry in painting" Galerie Chalette, New York Not signed
1960 exh . cat. (96); "Sztuka warszawska od sredniowiecza Oil on canvas, 96 x 60 cm
do potowy XX w. "Muzeum Narodowe, Warszawa 1962 MS/ SN/M/171
exh. cat. (83) repr.; "Mondrian de Stijl and their impact"
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; "Construction and geometry in
Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York 1964 exh. cat.
painting" Galerie Chalette, New York 1960 exh. cat. (97)
(84); Peinture (26)
Repr. Pierre Restany, Le Musee d'Art de Lodz, Pologne ,
53
L'index d'un humanisme, "Dom us" 1968 No 461; "Poezja"
Architectural Composition 9 c 1929
1969 No 9 p. 85; Katarzyna Baley, Szalona galeria. "Ty i
Not signed
Ja" 1969 No 9 p.19; Turowski (9) Oil on canvas, 96 x 60 cm
MS/ SN/M/170
46
Architectural Composition 2a 1927 Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Peinture (28)
Not signed Repr. Turowski (11)
Oil on canvas, 73 x 78 cm
MS/SN/M / 162
54
Exh. Kobro Strzem inski Architectural Compos ition 10c 1929
Repr. "Przeglqd artystyczny" 1958 p. 15 Not signed
Oil on canvas, 96 x 60 cm
47 MS/ SN/ M/174
Architectural Composition 3 a 1927 Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; " Mondrian de Stijl and their im-
Not signed pact" Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York 1964 exh .
Oil on canvas, 62 x 62 cm cat. (85); Peinture (27)
MS/ SN/M/ 155
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski 55
Repr . " Przeglqd artystyczny" 1958 p.15 Architectural Composition 11 c 1929
Not signed
48 Oil on canvas, 96 x 60 cm
Architectural Composition 4 a 1927 Exh. Kobro Strzeminski
Signed "W Strzeminski " on reverse
Oil on canvas, 72 x 78 cm
MS/ SN/ M/163 56
Architectural Composit ion 12a 1929
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski Not signed
Repr . "Przeglqd artystyczny " 1958 p.15 Oil on canvas, 96 x 60 cm
MS/ SN/ M/ 166
49 Exh. Kobro Strzeminski (11) repr .; "Mostra di pittura po-
Architectural Composition 5 b 1928 lacca contemporanea " Sala Napoleonica , Venezia 1959
Not signed exh . cat. (67); " Pologne 50 ans de peinture " Musee d'Art
Oil on canvas , 96 x 60 cm et d'Histoire, Geneve 1959 exh. cat. (110)
MS/ SN/ M/ 167
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski 57
Architectural Composition 13 c 1929
50 Not signed
Architectural Composition 6 b 1928 Oil on canvas, 96 x 60 cm
Not signed MS/ SN/M/169
Oil on canvas , 96 x 60 cm
MS/ SN/ M/ 172 Exh. Kobro Strzeminsl<i

162
58 Pencil on paper , 30 x 38 cm
Architectural Composition 14 d 1929/ 30 MS/ SN/ Rys/ 54/ 4
Not signed
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski ; Strzeminski Rysunk i
Oil on canvas, 96 x 60 cm
MS/SN / M/ 164
66
Exh . Kobro Strzeminski; "Poolse schilderkunst van nu" Village 5
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1959 exh. cat.; " Polsk Signed " W. Strzem 39" b. I.
maleri " Frederiksberg Raadhus, K0benhavn 1959 exh. cat. Pencil on paper , 30,5 x 39 cm
(54); Peinture (30) MS/ SN/ Rys/ 54/ 5
Repr . Turowski (10) Exh. Kobro Strzeminsk i; Strzeminski Rysunki

59 67
Architectural Composition 15d 1929/ 30 Man and Landscape with Trees 6
Not signed Signed "W. Strzem 1939" b. r.
Oil on canvas, 96 x 60 cm Pencil on paper , 31 x 38 cm
MS/ SN/ M/ 173 MS/ SN/ Rys/ 54/ 6
Exh . Kobro St rzem inski; Peintre (31) repr .; " 1000 Years Exh . Kobro Strzeminski; Strzeminski Rysunki
of Art in Poland " Royal Academy of Art, London 1970
exh . cat. (394); " L'Art in Europa autour de 1925" Stras-
68
bourg 1970 exh . cat. (200)
Two Human Shapes 7
Repr . " Przeg lc1d artystyczny " 1957 p. 6 ; " Przeglc1d artiys- Signed " W. Strzem 1939" b. r.
tyczny " 1958 p. 21; Minich, Metoda ekspozycji (84 in co- Pencil on paper, 30 x 38 cm
lour) ; Minich , 0 nowc1 organizacij~ (42); Turowski (12) MS/ SN/ Rys/ 54/ 7
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski ; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki
60
Abstract Composition 1933
69
Not signed
Trees 8
Oil on canvas, 64 x 64 cm
Signed "W . Strzem 1939" b. r.
MS/ SN/ M/ 148
Pencil on paper, 30,5 x 38 cm
Exh . Kobro Strzeminsk i MS/ SN/ Rys/ 54/ 8
Repr. " Przeglc1d artystyczny" 1957 p. 6 Exh. Kobro Strzeminski ; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki

61 Drawings from the cycle "Deportations " 1940

Typograph ic Composition " Zwrotnica " II 1926
Not signed 70
collage, gouache on paper, 70 x 100 cm On Pavement 1
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 37 Signed " W. Strzem 1940" b. I.
Pencil on paper , 30 x 38 cm
Drawings from the cycle "West Belorussia" 1939 MS/ SN/ Rys/ 55/ 1
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki
62
Trees 1 71
Signed "W . Strzem 1939" b. r. The Only Trace 2
Pencil on paper, 30 x 38 cm Signed "W . Strzem 1940" b. I.
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 54/ 1 Pencil on paper, 30 x 38 cm
Exh . Kobro Strzeminski Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki MS/ SN/ Rys/ 55/ 2
Exh. "Od M{odej Polski do naszych dni " Muzeum
63 Narodowe, Warszawa
Human Shape 2 Kobro Strzeminski ; Ill Z. G., 1959 exh . cat. (220)
Signed " W. Strzem 1939" b. r. Strzeminski Rysunki
Pencil on paper, 31 x 38 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 54/ 2 72
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Strzeminski Rysunki Casted Forth 3
Signed "W . Strzem 1940"
Pencil on paper, 30 x 38 cm
64 MS/ SN/ Rys/ 55/ 3
Woman 3
Signed "W. Strzem 1939" b. r. Exh . Kobro Strzeminski ; Ill Z. G. ; Strzeminski Rysunki
Pencil on paper, 31 x 38 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 54/ 3 73
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Ill Z. G.; Strzem inski Rysunki On Pavement 4
Signed " W. Strzem 1940" b. I.
Pencil on paper, 30 x 38 cm
65 MS/ SN/ Rys/ 55/ 4
Man and Woman 4
Signed " W. Strzem 1939" b. r. Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Strzeminski Rysunki

163
74 83
Looking Woman 5 Untitled 2
Signed " W. Strzem 1940" b. r. Signed "W. Strzem 1942" b. I.
Pencil on paper, 30 x 38 cm Pencil on paper, 38 x 30 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 55/ 5 MS/ SN/ Rys/ 57/ 2
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; 111Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki Exh. Kobro Strzeminski ; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki

75 84
Pavement 6 Untitled 3
Signed " W. Strzem 1940" b. I. Signed "W. Strzem 1942" b. r.
Pencil on paper, 30 x 38 cm Pencil on paper, 38 x 30 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 55/ 6 MS/ SN/ Rys/ 57/ 3
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Strzeminski Rysunki

Drawings from the cycle "Civil War " 1941

85
Untitled 4
76
Signed " W. Strzem 1942" b. I.
Untitled 1
Signed "W .Strzem 1941" b. r. Pencil on paper, 38 x 29,5 cm
Pencil on paper, 29,5 x 38 cm MS/ SN/ Rys/ 57/4
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 56/ 1 Exh . Kobro Strzeminski; Strzeminski Rysunki
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Strzeminski Rysunki
86
77 Untitled 5
Untitled 2 Signed "W. Strzem 1942" b. I.
Signed " W. Strzem 1941" b. I. Pencil on paper, 38 x 29,5 cm
Pencil on paper, 30 x 38 cm MS/ SN/ Rys/ 57/ 5
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 56/ 2
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Strzeminski Rysunki
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski ; Ill Z . G.; Strzeminski Rysunki
87
78 Untitled 6
Untitled 3 Signed " W. Strzem 1942" b. I.
Signed "W.Strzem 1941" b. I. Pencil on paper, 38,5 x 30 cm
Pencil on paper, 30 x 38 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 57/ 6
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 56/ 3
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Strzeminski Rysunki
88
Untitled 7
79 Signed " W. Strzem 1942" b. I.
Untitled 4 Pencil on paper, 38 x 30 cm
Signed " W. Strzem 1941" b. r.
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 57/ 7
Pencil on paper, 32 x 42 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 56/ 4
Drawings form the cycle "Landscapes and Still Lifes"
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki
1943/ 44

80
Untitled 5 89
Signed " W. Strzem 1941" b. I. Still Life 1
Pencil on paper, 29 x 42 cm Signed " W. Strzem 1943" b. I.
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 56/ 5 Pencil on paper , 29,5 x 39 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 58/ 1
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski ; 111Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki
Exh . Kobro Strzeminski; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki
81
Untitled 6 90
Signed "W. Strzem 1941" b. I. Still Life 2
Pencil on paper , 30 x 42 cm Signed "W. Strzem 1943" b. I.
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 56/ 6 Pencil on paper, 29,5 x 39 cm
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski ; Ill Z. G. ; Strzeminski Rysunki MS/ SN/ Rys/ 58/ 2
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski ; Ill Z. G. ; Strzeminski Rysunki
Drawings from the cycle "Faces" 1942

82 91
Untitled 1 Landscape 3
Signed " W. Strzem 1942" b. I. Signed "W. Strzem 1943" b. I.
Pencil on paper , 38 x 30 cm Pencil on paper, 30 x 38,5 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 57/1 MS/ SN/ Rys/ 58/3

Exh. Ko bro Strzeminski; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki

164
92 101
Still Life 4 Going to Dig Trenches 7
Signed "W . Strzem 1943" Signed " W. Strzem 1944" b. I.
Pencil on paper, 30 x 39 cm Pencil on paper, 29,5 x 41,5 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 58/ 4 MS/ SN/ Rys/ 59/ 7
Exh . Kobro Strzeminski ; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki Exh. Kobro Strzeminsk i ; Ill Z. G.; Strzemiriski Rysunki

102
93 Going to Dig Trenches 8
Landscape 5 Signed "W. Strzem 1944" b. I.
Signed " W. Strzem 1944" b. I.
Pencil on paper, 29,5 x 41,5 cm
Pencil on paper, 29,5 x 41,5 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 59/ 8
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 58/ 5
Exh. Kobro Strzemiriski; Strzemiriski Rysunki
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Strzeminski Rysunki

103
94 Human Shape 9
Landscape 6 Not signed
Signed " W. Strzem 44" b. I. Pencil on paper, 42 x 30 cm
Pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm MS/ SN/ Rys/ 59/ 9
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 58/ 6
Exh . Strzemiriski Rysunki
Drawings from the cycle "Cheap as Mud" 1944
Drawings from the cycle " Hands which are not with us"
1945
95
Untitled 1
104
Signed " W. Strzem 1944" b. I.
Untitled 1
Pencil on paper, 29 x 42 cm
Signed " W. Strzem 1945" b. I.
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 59/ 1
Pencil on paper, 38 x 30 cm
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki MS/ SN/ Rys/ 60/ 1
Exh. Kobro Strzemiriski; Strzemiriski Rysunki
96
Untitled 2 105
Signed "W. Strzem 1944" b. I. Untitled 2
Pencil on paper, 29 x 42 cm Signed " W. Strzem 1945" b. I.
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 59/ 2 Pencil on paper, 42 x 30 cm
Exh. Ko bro Strzeminski; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki MS/ SN/ Rys/ 60/ 2
Exh. Kobro Strzemiriski ; Strzemiriski Rysunki
97
Untitled 3 106
Signed " W. Strzem 1944" b. I. Untitled 3
Pencil on paper, 30 x 41,5 cm Not signed
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 59/ 3 Pencil on paper, 42 x 30 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 60/ 3
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski ; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki
Exh. Kobro Strzeminski; Strzeminski Rysunki

98
107
Untitled 4
Landscape 1939
Signed " W. Strzem 1944" b. I.
Signed "W. Strzem 1939" b. r.
Pencil on paper, 29,5 x 41,5 cm
Pencil on paper , 30,5 x 37,5 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 59/ 4
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 141
Exh. Kobro Strzeminsk i; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki
Exh. Ill Z. G., Strzemiriski Rysunki

99 108
Untitled 5 Landscape 1941
Signed "W . Strzem 1944" b. r. Signed " W. Strzem 1941" b. I.
Pencil on paper, 29,5 x 41,5 cm Sepia drawing on paper, 35 x 47 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 59/ 5 MS/ SN/ Rys/ 142
Exh . Kobro Strzeminski; Ill Z. G.; Strzemiriski Rysunki Exh. Ill Z. G., Strzemirisk i Rysunki

100 109
Untitled 6 Mountain Landscape - Trees 1946
Signed "W. Strzem 1944" b. I. Signed "W. Strzem 1946" b. I.
Pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm Pencil on paper, 49 x 33 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/ 59/ 6 MS/ SN/ Rys/ 75

Exh . Kobro Strzeminski; Ill Z. G. ; Strzemiriski Rysunki Exh. Kobro Strzemiriski; Ill Z. G.; Strzemiriski Rysunki

165
 110
Mountain Landscape 1946
Signed "W . Strzem 1946" b. I.
Penc il on paper, 35 x 49 cm
MS/ SN/ Rys/76
Exh . Kobro Strzeminski; "Od Mtodej Polski do naszych
dni " Muzeum Naradowe, Warszawa 1959 exh . cat. (221),
repr. ; Ill Z. G.; Strzeminski Rysunki

111
Space Composition 1 1948
Not signed
Painted wood, 67 x 150 x 100 cm
MS/ SN/ R/ 20

112
Space Composition 2 1948
Not signed
Painted wood , 100 x 150 x 67 cm
MS/ SN/ R/ 21

It not otherwise indicated all works have been lent by the

Museum Sztuki in Lodz.

166
Cat. 1 Berlewi 1924

167
Cat. 2 Hiller 1934 Cat. 3 Hiller c. 1934

Cat. 4 Hiller 1935 Cat. 5 Hiller 1935

168
Cat. 6 Hiller c. 1935

Cat. 7 Hiller c. 1937

Cat. 8 Hiller c . 1937 Cat. 9 Hiller c. 1937

169
Cat. 10 Hiller c. 1938 Cat. 11 Hiller 1939

170
Cat. 12 Kobro 1921 (1972)

171
 /

Cat. 13 Kobro 1921/ 22 (1971)

172
Cat. 14 Kobro c . 1924

173
Cat. 15 Kobro 1924

174
Cat. 16 Kobro c. 1924 (1972) Cat. 17 Kobro c. 1924 (1972)

175
Cat. 19 Kobro 1925

176
 r

Cat. 18 Kobro 1925 (1967)

177
Cat. 20 Kobro 1928

178
Cat. 21 Kobro 1928

179
Cat. 22 Kobro 1929

180
Cat. 23 Kobro 1929

181
Cat. 25 Kobro 1931 (1973)

Cat. 26 Kobro c. 1932

.
Cat. 27 Kobro 1933

182
Cat. 28 Stai:ewski c. 1929

184
Cat. 28 a Stai:ewski 1929

185
 ---- 111111111111111111
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Cat. 30 Stazewski 1930/ 31

186
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Cat. 30 a Stazewski 1934

187
Cat. 31 Strzemir'lski 1923

189
 Cat. 32 Strzemir'lski 1923

Cat. 33 Strzemir'lski 1925

190
Cat. 37 Strzeminski 1929 Cat. 35 Strzeminski 1924/27

Cat. 34 Strzeminski c. 1925 Cat. 36 Strzeminski 1928

191
Cat. 40 Strzeminski 1931

Cat. 41 Strzeminski 1931/32

Cat. 38 Strzeminski 1931/32 ~

192
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P6~
Cat. 42 Strzemir'lski 1932

Cat. 41 a Strzemir'lski 1932

195
196
Cat. 44 Strzemir'lski 1934

197
Cat. 45 Strzeminski 1926

199
 Cat. 46 Strzeminski 1927

Cat. 49

Cat. 50
Strzeminski

Strzeminski
1928

1928
..
Cat. 51

Cat. 52
Strzeminski

Strzeminski
1928

1928/29
..

Cat. 47 Strzeminski 1927

Cat. 48 Strzeminski 1927

200
201
 I.

Cat. 54 Strzemir'lski 1929

Cat. 55 Strzemir'lski 1929

Cat. 56 Strzemir'lski 1929

Cat. 58 Strzemir'lski 1929/ 30 ..

202
203
 Cat. 60 Strzemir'lski 1933

Cat. 57 Strzemir'lski 1929

Cat. 59 Strzemir'lski 1929/ 30

204
Cat. 62 Strzemir'iski 1939 Cat. 67 Strzemir'iski 1939

Cat. 72 Strzemir'iski 1940 Cat. 77 Strzemir'iski 1941

Cat. 80 Strzemir'iski 1941 Cat. 92 Strzemir'iski 1943

205
 -~--''

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Cat. 94 Strzemir'lski 1944 Cat. 95 Strzemir'lski 1944

Cat. 100 Strzemir'lski 1944 Cat. 107 Strzemir'lski 1939

Cat. 108 Strzemir'lski 1941 Cat.110 Strzemir'lski 1946

206
Cat. 83 Strzemir'lski 1942 Cat 86 Strzemiriski 1942

Cat. 106 Strzeminski Cat. 109 Strzeminski 1946

207
 a

208
Cat. 111 Strzemiriski 1948

Cat. 112 Strzemiriski 1948

© copyright Muzeum Sztuki , l6dz

Photo's:
Muzeum Sztuki, l6dz : Bogumit Olawa-Olawinski,
Danuta Wr6blewska
lnstytut Sztuki PAN, Warsaw: Stefan Deptuszewski,
Tadeusz Kazmierski , Zdzistaw Sowinski

Colour photography:
Franziska Schmidt, Stuttgart

Production:
Dr. Cantz'sche Druckerei, Stuttgart

Printed in the Federal Republic of Germany

I