The Themersons - Views and Ideas

The image of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson as a couple of experimenters with a sense of humour should not obscure the fact that their post-war works was marked with a sense of satire and critique. Both in their works and statements there is a dilemma. In Stefan Themerson’s works there is a postulate of ruling over reality and language expressed in semantic poetry and in Positivist moralizing essays. However, it is contrasted with novels of catastrophic message. A similar fracture can be observed in Franciszka’s works: the lightness of set designs and children book illustrations is different from unsettling white paintings immersed in the aura of mystery. 

A lecture conducted by dr Justyna Jaworska (1975), an employee of the Department of Film and Visual Culture at the Institute of Polish Culture at the University of Warsaw, an editor of the Polish drama section in Dialog monthly. 

The lecture accompanies the premiere of the catalogue The Themersons and the Avant-Garde.