Witkacy: Dziwność istnienia / The Strangeness of Existence

by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz

Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885–1939), more commonly known as "Witkacy", was a Polish playwright, novelist, painter, photographer and philosopher. The album features 130 of his most striking graphic works (most of them reproduced in full-page format): black and white photographs (including self-portraits), oil and pastel paintings, charcoal and pencil drawings, lithographs, designs for set decorations. Witkacy's art is accompanied by a bilingual (English and Polish) 21-page bio, as well as little known photographs of the artist.

Genres: Art

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (24 February 1885 – 18 September 1939), commonly known as Witkacy, was a Polish writer, painter, philosopher, playwright, novelist, and photographer active in the interwar period.
Born in Warsaw, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz was a son of the painter, architect and an art critic Stanisław Witkiewicz. His mother was Maria Pietrzkiewicz Witkiewiczowa. Both of his parents were born in the Samogitian region of Lithuania. His godmother was the internationally famous actress Helena Modrzejewska.
Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz – a writer, playwright, poet, painter, photographer, philosopher and an art theoretician. Witkacy was a visionary ahead of his times, and yet a concretely pungent prankster, whose cutting-egde judgement and catastrophic prophesies allow new generations to rediscover his work time and again. One of the few Polish artists whose significance for world art history endures the test of time.
He died by commiting suicide upon learning of the Red Army’s attack on Poland, on the 18th of September, 1939 in the village of Jeziory, Polesie region (present-day Ukraine).