Unposted Letters: Correspondence, Diaries, Drawings, Documents 1940-1942

Beautiful and interesting.

This extraordinary book is beyond any fixed categories: it is so multidimensional! It is about an exceptional couple of Polish artists, about experimental art and literature, about a very deep love, about the second world war, and, in the background, about the Nazi regime determined to annihilate all Jews, and about much else. What I admired most is the extraordinary courage and quality of this couple's spirit as expressed in their communications. Communications which were very difficult or even impossible to transmit during their separation because of the war. I've read this book carefully and with great respect. I found it deeply moving, precisely because it is not at all sentimental. But what quality! This book, put together with great care, contains factual information and is supported by thorough research. It is history, both very personal and universal. It is both beautiful and true.Everybody who contributed to this book deserves praise. First of all the Themersons themselves (who died in 1988), then Jasia Reichardt (editor) in London, Pedro Cid Proença (designer) and many others, and then the publisher, Gaberbocchus & De Harmonie, who realised a book, so carefully produced, with a quality rarely seen these days (look at the reproductions of Franciszka's art, or the relevant documents, such as telegrams, visa applications etc.). Those of you who really are interested, read it (and visually enjoy it, if alone for Franciszka's paintings and drawings), will find it more than rewarding. This book is a treasure, and might well become a collector's item in the not so distant future.I should add that the book (in the English language), was published in Amsterdam and that I am Dutch and live in the Netherlands, so I could purchase this book easily from my local bookshop. In the UK it is available from GV Art Gallery, Franciszka's dealer ( [email protected] ).The best information about the contents is by Jasia Reichardt (p.9 in the book):About Unposted LettersThis book is a record of the lives of a young couple, Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, between 1939 and 1942, when they were separated by the events of World War II -- he in France and she in England.Their wartime story starts in August 1939, in Paris. They have been there for over a year. Why are they in Paris? Stefan is asked this question time and again. Did they emigrate? Did they leave Poland to escape anti-Semitism? Neither was the case. Stefan explains:At the time, Paris was the world's centre of the arts and one need not search for any other motives. If one wrote, painted or made films, one had to be in Paris. So, in the end we went to Paris, and there the war found us.When the war breaks out, Franciszka wants to return to Warsaw to be with her family. Stefan refuses to go, and so they stay.Two days after the declaration of war, the Themersons volunteer for the Polish Army in France. Franciszka is assigned to the Polish Government-in-Exile as cartographer and illustrator, and eventually ends up in England. Stefan becomes a soldier and stays in France.150 of their letters survive, as do 150 telegrams, Stefan's nine diaries, 70 official documents and Franciszka's many drawings. It is from these sources that their story is told. I provide the interjections which relate some background events and identify some of the other participants in the story.Letters are difficult to decipher, diaries are often illegible, and so there is some guesswork and some gaps not only in the story but also in completing available information. For instance, we may have a first name of someone close to Stefan but not the surname; we may have a record of an event but not of precisely where it took place. But the story has a beginning, a middle and an end. We can read it because Stefan and Franciszka were unable to talk to each other and so wrote down their thoughts and experiences instead. It articulates the inner life of two remarkable individuals who are borne along, like all of Europe at the time, by an erratic and unstable course of events over which they have next to no control.The story is called Unposted Letters because this is what Franciszka called her drawings. They are never sent and end up in her drawer. Some of her letters, long soliloquies like Stefan's diaries, meet the same fate.---------------------------------------------More information about the Themersons is mentioned on the back cover of the book:Franciszka Themerson (née Weinles), born in Warsaw 1907, is a painter, illustrator and graphic artist. She graduates at the Warsawa Art Academy in 1931, with a gold medal and the highest distinction of the year.She is the daughter of Jakub Weinles, a painter of traditional, often highly expressive scenes from Jewish life, and Łucja Weinles (née Kaufman), a pianist.Stefan Themerson, born in Plock in 1910, is a writer, film-maker, experimental photographer. He is the son of Miesczyslaw Themerson, a doctor who is also a published writer, and Salomea Smulewicz.Franciszka and Stefan marry in 1931. Together they create five films making use of experimental photographic techniques that Stefan has been developing since 1928. He invents a 'trick table', a camera-stand that enables them to improvise photograms in motion. They are acknowledged leaders of the film-making avant-garde in Poland during the 1930's; as well as their films, they publish two issues of a magazine, f.a. [art film]. The first of these deals with the new English cinema and the other new French sinema. They visit film-makers in London and Paris and bring examples of their work to Warsaw.To earn a living he writes and she illustrates books for children. These books are unlike other books for children. There are no fairies or wizards. The magic of their stories is found in the real world of bricks and mortar, electrictity, the alphabet and the Post Office.They leave Warsaw to continue their work in Paris in 1938.