It brings together her two films made in the 1930s, during her time in Poland, a series of 28 drawings created in London in the early 1940s, as well as the artist’s three paintings dating from the 1950s.
The Polish Cultural Institute in London, which supports the exhibition, writes on its website, that Themerson’s works: “with mingled tragedy and humour, explore the turbulent years before and after the Second World War”.
Exhibition curator Hilary Floe told the Polish Press Agency that Themerson documented her war-time experience “in a poignant way”. She added that “at the present time, with war conflicts waged in Ukraine and the Middle East, her works gain a special meaning”.
Floe explained that Franciszka Themerson made her drawings while separated from her husband, Stefan, who remained in occupied France. “They were deeply in love and very distressed by the separation. They had little ability to communicate. In her drawings, she conveyed both her personal feeling of longing and her experience of war, and we are able to see her walking alone through London, bombs falling on the city and people seeking shelter in the underground”.
The curator also told the Polish Press Agency: “Most of our visitors don’t have, and won’t have, any experience of war, and that’s why it’s important to appreciate Themerson’s skills in chronicling her moving experience”.
Born in Warsaw in 1907, Franciszka Themerson graduated from the city’s Fine Arts Academy in 1931 and seven years later left for the West. After two years in Paris, she settled in London, where she lived until her death in 1988. She was active in various fields of the visual arts, including experimental film, on which she collaborated with her husband, the writer Stefan Themerson. She illustrated her husband’s books for children and they both founded Gaberbocchus Press, an avant-garde publishing house.
Franciszka Themerson’s exhibition at Tate Britain, runs until March 30, 2025.
The exhibition’s title, Walking Backwards, is taken from the Themersons’ 1937 film, The Adventure of a Good Citizen.
(mk)