The Witkacy by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz

In the late 1920s he turned to the novel, writing two works, 'Farewell to Autumn' and 'Insatiability'.ĭuring the 1930s, Witkiewicz published a text on his experiences of narcotics, including peyote, and pursued his interests in philosophy. Witkiewicz Portrait Firm, which became his main source of income.

Of about forty plays written by Witkiewicz between 19, twenty-one survive, and only 'Jan Maciej Karol Hellcat' met with any public success during the author's lifetime.Īround the year 1925 Witkacy quit painting with oils on canvas, and founded the S.I. He soon entered into a major creative phase, setting out his principles in 'New Forms in Painting and Introduction to the Theory of Pure Form in the Theatre'. He had begun to support himself through portrait painting and continued to do so on his return to Zakopane in Poland. Witkiewicz witnessed the Russian Revolution while stationing in St Petersburg. A happen-stance citizen of the Russian Empire, Witkiewicz went to St Petersburg and was commissioned as an officer in the Imperial army.

Visitors to Kraków can see a large collection Witkacy’s wacked-out paintings on the top floor of the National Museum.Witkiewicz was invited by Malinowski to act as draftsman and photographer on a 1914 expedition to Oceania, a venture that was interrupted by the onset of World War I. But in a scene that wouldn’t have been amiss in one of his satires, it eventually emerged that bungling officials had buried the wrong corpse – the subject at the centre of the excellent Polish film ‘Mystyfikacja’ (available with English subtitles). Originally buried in a far-flung corner of the Ukraine, Witkacy’s body was returned to Zakopane in 1988. When the Red Army crossed into Poland on September 17, 1939, sensing the end of civilisation, Witkacy took a suicidal dosage of drugs, ending his life the next day. He experimented with all forms of modern art, started his own theatre company in Zakopane (an hour south of Kraków) and expanded on his philosophical theories.Ī rabid anti-communist, Witkacy was hell-bent on proving that an individual’s aims would always be different from that of society and state. Twisted portraits of his high-society friends (heads springing from penises, beastly animal shapes flying in the background) became his trademark. As he plunged into heavy spells of morphine, cocaine and peyote abuse his paintings became all the more inspired.

The Witkacy by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz