Franciszka Themerson
Encyclopedia
Franciszka Themerson ( 28 June 1907 - 29 June 1988) was a Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, later British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...

, film-maker and stage designer.

The daughter of the artist, Jakub Weinles, she was born in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

 in 1907. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Art in Warsaw with great distinction, in 1931. She lived in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 from 1938 to 1940, and then, from 1940, lived in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 until her death in 1988. She was principally a painter, although, throughout her life, she worked in several other fields of the visual arts: illustration, stage design and graphic design.

She collaborated with her husband, the writer Stefan Themerson
Stefan Themerson
Stefan Themerson was a Polish, later British poet, novelist, film-maker, composer and philosopher.-Early life:Stefan Themerson was born in Płock in what was then the Russian Empire on 25 January 1910 and died in London on 6 September 1988....

, on experimental films, illustrated books for children which he wrote, and in 1948 she founded with him the adventurous publishing company Gaberbocchus Press, of which she was the art director. Named after the Latin for 'Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense verse poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1872 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

', from a later translation made by Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

's uncle, Hassard Dodgson. In 31 years the Gaberbocchus Press published over sixty titles, including works by Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side....

, Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as...

, Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...

 and the Themersons themselves. Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi became one of the most celebrated plays and was published in many editions.

Apart from appearing in many journals worldwide, several collections of her drawings have been published as books: The Way It Walks, 1954; Traces of Living, 1969; Franciszka Themerson, London 1941-42, 1987; The Drawings of Franciszka Themerson, 1991.

Her theatre designs included marionette productions of Ubu Roi
Ubu Roi
Ubu Roi is a play by Alfred Jarry, premiered in 1896. It is a precursor of the Theatre of the Absurd and Surrealism. It is the first of three stylised burlesques in which Jarry satirises power, greed, and their evil practices — in particular the propensity of the complacent bourgeois to abuse the...

, Ubu Enchainé and Threepenny Opera. Many of these were exhibited at the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

 in [1993].

Her major one-man exhibitions include those at Gallery One in 1957 and 1959; Drian Galleries, 1963; Zachęta, Warsaw, 1964; New Gallery, Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

, 1966; Demarco, Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, 1968; A retrospective at Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1975; Gruenebaum, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, 1978; Łódź, Warsaw, Wrocław, 1981–1982; Nordjyllands Kunstmusum, Aalborg
Aalborg
-Transport:On the north side of the Limfjord is Nørresundby, which is connected to Aalborg by a road bridge Limfjordsbroen, an iron railway bridge Jernbanebroen over Limfjorden, as well as a motorway tunnel running under the Limfjord Limfjordstunnelen....

, 1991; Gardner Centre, University of Sussex, 1992; Gdańsk
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...

, 1993; Redfern Gallery, 1993; National Theatre, 1993; Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...

, 1993. Unposted Letters, Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. The museum was founded during the First World War in 1917 and intended as a record of the war effort and sacrifice of Britain and her Empire...

 in 1996; Kordegarda, Warsaw, 1998; Art First, London, 1999 and 2001; CK Zamek, Poznan
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...

, 2004.

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