Lubomir Tomaszewski’s Most Beautiful Designs
Over six decades ago, a talented sculptor and would-be architect began to design small ceramic figurines. The world went crazy for them! Let’s take a look at some of Polish designer Lubomir Tomaszewski’s most famous designs.
According to some accounts, we owe Lubomir Tomaszewski’s beautiful, subtle, poetic ceramic figurines to the artist’s antipathy towards the communist regime. Having graduated from the Faculty of Sculpture at Warsaw’s Academy of Fine Arts and studied for a few years at the Faculty of Architecture at Warsaw University of Technology, Tomaszewski began working for Institute of Industrial Design, which has just been established a few years prior. The place didn’t seem overly political, allowing him to avoid making designs ordered by the state. It’s here that, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Tomaszewski created his most renowned works – small, graceful porcelain figurines of people and animals.
Later, Tomaszewski began creating designs for a slew of customers, with his figurines and dishware being produced by Poland’s most famous china factories, including the celebrated Ćmielów factory.
The golden age of ceramics
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Lubomir Tomaszewski, ‘Fox – Stalking’, 1956, Institute of Industrial Design, photo: © Copyright by Piotr Ligier / MNW
Tomaszewski worked in the Department of Ceramics at the Institute of Industrial Design alongside the likes of Henryk Jędrasiak, Hanna Orthwein and Mieczysław Naruszewicz. All of them were sculptors and had had little previous experience with ceramics. The institute allowed them to experiment, providing them with the facilities and space allowing them to create even the most unconventional items. The Fox – Stealing figurine, made in 1956, was one of Tomaszewski’s earliest designs, testifying to the author’s ability to create not only a synthetic form but also to convey movement, tension and dynamics – and all that despite his lack of experience with the material.
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Lubomir Tomaszewski, ‘African Buffalo’ figurine, 1958, Institute of Industrial Design, photo: © Copyright by Piotr Ligier / MNW
During the next few years, Tomaszewski designed many more animal figurines: lithe as the Greyhound, peculiar but delightful such as his Kiwi, dignified like the African Buffalo and – finally – a series of hen and rooster figurines.
A charming sailor
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Lubomir Tomaszewski, ‘Felix Sailor’, 1959, photo: AS Ćmielów
In 1957, Tomaszewski and Henryk Jędrasiak published an article entitled Developing Ceramic Sculpture, often interpreted as the young designers’ manifesto. The text included their thoughts concerning the necessity of breaking with outdated, unattractive artistic forms of the past combined with the anxiety about whether these innovative forms would attract the interest of the public. Now we know that their worry was unnecessary – ceramic designs from that period still enjoy unflagging popularity today. Case in point: Tomaszewski’s Felix Sailor figurine, whose several small details, such as extraordinarily simplified form, soft shape and frugally marked elements of the face and attire, helped create an incredibly charming whole.
Female forms
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Lubomir Tomaszewski, ‘Arab Girl’ figurines, 1959, Institute of Industrial Design, photo: © Copyright by Piotr Ligier / MNW
Tomaszewski turned out to be an expert in capturing the soft movements and gentle curves of women’s figures.
The designer created numerous figurines representing women – hippie girls in trousers, corpulent singers, women admiring themselves in mirrors, bathing and combing their hair. He also depicted women from around the globe: his Mexican Lady figurines from 1958 and Arab Girl figurines from 1959 were extremely popular. Although these figurines lack detail, it’s easy to see what the artist wanted to convey.
A cup with no handle
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Lubomir Tomaszewski, ‘Dorota’ coffee set, produced in Porcelain Tableware Manufacture in Ćmielów, 1961, photo: Michał Korta
At the beginning of the 1960s, Lubomir Tomaszewski designed two coffee sets for the Institute of Industrial Design, Dorota and Ina (these were the names of the designer’s daughters). Tomaszewski devoted a lot of effort to analysing the mechanics of the hand’s grip and movement to create cups which fit into a human hand perfectly. This explains the cups’ peculiar shape – they don’t have traditional handles, and their streamlined form evokes the form of a seashell.
Other elements of the set – the pots, milk jugs and sugar bowls – are built in a similar way. The coffee set was first presented at the 1st International Exhibition of Industrial Forms in Paris in 1963, causing a huge sensation and winning the gold medal. Dorota and Ina are a testament to the fact that sculpture-like, almost abstract forms can be of use even when it comes to practical objects.
Sculptures of fire & smoke
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Lubomir Tomaszewski, ‘Athlete’ figurine, 1959-1960, Institute of Industrial Design, photo: © Copyright by Piotr Ligier / MNW
In 1966, Tomaszewski left for the United States, where he lived until his death in 2018. There, he took up didactic work, teaching design, but he also returned to his artistic endeavours, creating sculptures and experimental paintings. His sculptures that gained particular were made of… fire and smoke, and were often interpreted as an artistic rendition of the author’s experiences from the Warsaw Uprising.
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Lubomir Tomaszewski, ‘Camel’ figurine, 1957, Institute of Industrial Design, photo: © Copyright by Piotr Ligier / MNW
In 2005, the new owner of the Ćmielów factory offered Tomaszewski an opportunity to design new figurines. The artist returned to the well-liked motif of women, creating figurines showing women in movement, dancing in swirly dresses, with their slim arms raised, as well as a series of cat figurines.
His pieces are unmistakeable and remain a beautiful addition to anyone’s décor.
Originally written in Polish, Nov 2019, translated by Anna Potoczny, Sep 2021
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