Mezzanine Presentation: Aleksander Krzywobłocki's Archive and the “artes” Circle

At the beginning of this year, thanks to the efforts of curator Paweł Polit, the donation from Wojciech Krzywobłocki – the home archive of his father, Aleksander Krzywobłocki – was formally incorporated into the museum's resources. This unique collection comprises individual architectural projects, photomontages, and the artist's written memoirs, as well as materials concerning the Lwów artists' group "artes," which he co-founded. The donation complements the archive transferred to Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź along with a large batch of works in 1978.

The artist created his archive in parallel with his artistic explorations. Initially, it consisted of passionately collected press photographs, newspaper clippings, and illustrations with creative potential, which were then used to create photomontages or exchanged with friends. As he wrote in a typescript titled “Events, Impressions”: “But collecting or browsing is not all – it is the beginning of a strange 'mystery'.”

Photographs of friends: Jerzy Janisch, Margit Reich-Sielska, and Roman Sielski from joint trips could instantly transform from reportage shots into surreal compositions. This is how “montages from nature” were created – like the photograph of the three friends whose bodies, laid on a clay escarpment, were suspended in an undefined space, without a point of reference – looking like astronauts moving across the surface of an alien planet.

Initially, the artist created photocollages in secret and did not decide to present them publicly. In an interview with Jerzy Olek, he admitted that “the concept of photomontage was not popular then (…) in photographic circles it was not taken very seriously.” A turning point may have been a small album by László Moholy-Nagy, brought from Paris by Janisch – the creator of abstract photograms, with whom Krzywobłocki began correspondence.

The oldest photomontage is “S.O.S” from 1928, composed of several elements: turbulent water, a ship, and a hand raised upwards like a mast. The motif of a hand juxtaposed with an architectural or structural element recurs in subsequent works. Did Krzywobłocki dream of robots? In the era of the first long-distance flights, steam locomotives, cranes, and mass-produced Citroën cars in Paris, the artist enthusiastically recorded the presence of machines. By creating photocollages from press clippings, he independently selected the proportions of new technologies in relation to humans and natural elements.

The couriers of modernity were the artists themselves – Janisch, Tadeusz Wojciechowski, the Sielskis – who traveled between Lwów and Paris. The decision to establish an association promoting modern art was made in 1929 by Janisch, Mieczysław Wysocki, and Krzywobłocki, who took on the task of drafting the statute and formally registering the group.

Instead of a manifesto, there was action. The first exhibition of the “artes” Association of Fine Artists, organized in Lwów in 1930, presented, among other things, Krzywobłocki’s architectural projects – a graduate of the Faculty of Architecture of the Lwów Polytechnic – such as the Monument to Aviators in the Azores (dedicated to the memory of Kazimierz Kubala and Ludwik Idzikowski and the attempt of the first Polish transatlantic flight in 1929) and the concept of the “Triumphal Arch.”

The exhibition aroused controversy in the Lwów community. As Krzywobłocki recalls in the typescript “Following Encounters and Memories”: “on the opening day of the exhibition, a refund of the entrance fee was demanded as people demonstratively left the exhibition premises.” The artists were aware of the audience’s distance from modern art. According to Ludwik Lille, it was a difficult moment because the previous criteria for reception disappeared: firstly, the plot disappeared, “there are also no sentimental moods of mornings and nights,” (…) and finally, the most important criterion disappeared: similarity” [leaflet, Lwów : Association "Artes", 1930].

In 1930, the First Graphic Portfolio of the "artes" Fine Artists was also published, containing a set of ten works by the group members, including Krzywobłocki's sports stadium project, which Debora Vogel wrote about in a review for the monthly “Pomost” [no. 1, Lwów, 1931], saying that it “is an expression of the tendency to simplify and reject unnecessary ballast of mass, which consequently serves to equalize construction and beauty.”

The activity of “artes” as an independent group ended in 1935 when, along with the subgroup of neo-artes members that emerged during its development, it was absorbed by the Professional Union of Fine Artists in Lwów. The continuity of the group was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II, during which artists Otto Hahn and Aleksander Riemer perished, and numerous works were destroyed.

It was not until 1969 and 1970 that a retrospective exhibition of the group, titled “Artes 1929-1934,” took place in the National Museums in Wrocław (then Muzeum Śląskie we Wrocławiu) and Szczecin (then Muzeum Pomorza Zachodniego), and in a condensed version at the Contemporary Gallery in Warsaw. The archive preserved an author's copy of the exhibition catalog supplemented with press clippings, invitations, and photographs from the openings. It also includes Krzywobłocki's correspondence with Tadeusz Wojciechowski – one of the few surviving members of “artes” at the time – and with Piotr Łukaszewicz – the exhibition curator, thanks to whom the group was re-integrated into the narrative of interwar avant-garde.

In the late 1960s, Krzywobłocki wrote down his memoirs under various titles: “Following Encounters and Memories Part I” (dedicated to the memory of colleagues including Leon Chwistek and Otto Hahn), “Events, Impressions,” “Dezyderiusz’s Memories from 1901-1962,” in which he tried to capture the realities of multicultural Lwów and identify the impetus for the group's formation. He also devoted much space to childhood memories and polio, as a result of which he struggled with muscle paralysis and postural defects. About his mother, Stanisława, he noted: “a Lwów native, daughter of an industrialist, owner of a well-known confectionery with a sign extolling ‘J. Zimmer’s royal gingerbreads’.”

The archive has the potential to create future relationships and seeks new audiences. The success of the endeavor depends on the continued cooperation of the donor with the new owner and future recipients. Thanks to active forms of operation, the archive has the chance to create dynamic relationships within the collected elements, as well as with external artifacts or connections to elements of the collection in which it is located.

Between 2024–2026, the Department of Scientific Documentation of Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź received, in addition to Krzywobłocki's archive, the archives of Richard Demarco, Jasi Reichardt (continued from the second half of the 20th century), Teresa Kelm, and Tadeusz Porada, as well as materials accompanying Andrzej Łobodziński's last exhibition, Gábor Tóth's sticker collection, part of Stanisław Karol Kubicki's book collection, and Ryszard Stanisławski's photographic archive.