Letters, diaries, drawings and official documents tell the wartime story
of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, artists, writers and film-makers.
In 1938 Franciszka and Stefan Themerson moved from Warsaw to Paris. Who
were they? They made avant-garde films in Poland in the 1930s. She was a
painter, he was a writer. Why did they go to Paris? Because Paris was
the centre of the art world, and as Stefan said: "if one wrote, painted
or made films, one had to be in Paris".
When the war broke out, they volunteered for the Polish Army. Stefan
stayed in France, Franciszka escaped to London withthe Polish Government
in Exile. They were separated until the summer of 1942. 150 of their
letters survive, as do 150 telegrams, Stefan's diaries, official
documents, and Franciszka's drawings, which she called 'Unposted
Letters', and which provide the title of this book.
The documents in this beautifully produced and illustrated book
articulate the inner life of two remarkable individuals borne on an
erratic current of events over which they hadno control. In London, they
made two more films. And after the war, they founded the Gaberbocchus
Press and published books by Alfred Jarry, Kurt Schwitters, Bertrand
Russell among others, as well as their own, startlingly original works.
Benelux: De Harmonie, Amsterdam