Maria Bujakowa: The First Lady of Polish Embroidery

maria_bujakowa_w_pracowni_1980_fot._j._fraczak_mbl.jpg, default, Maria Bujakowa in the studio, 1980. Photo: J. Frączak / Magdalena Bujak-Lenczowska Archive

#photography & visual arts

Maria Bujakowa spent six decades weaving everything from Marxist propaganda screens to a fur rug nicknamed ‘the zebra’ to a 1979 tapestry of dinosaurs, made to delight her grandson. Somewhere in between, she founded the Polish School of Textiles.

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The pace of everyday life gives a different character to the objects around us. We can only have practical, functional items that are seamlessly integrated with our inner lives… Above all, we want things that are ordinary and familiar; beauty for everyday life. Lace, however, lacks these qualities; instead, it’s an object of luxury, intricacy and refinement – above all, it’s strongly linked to the style of the eras in which it flourished… It doesn’t live with us – it merely languishes. To give it new life, a complete reassessment is needed… We must start from scratch, radically and thoroughly.

The above is what Maria Bujakowa wrote in the 1950s, after becoming the director of the School of Lace-Making in Zakopane. The artistic revolution initiated by the ‘first lady of Polish embroidery’ at this educational institution not only transformed Polish carpet-weaving but also had a significant influence on subsequent generations of female artists and craftswomen, and consequently on the birth of what became known as the Polish School of Textiles. Although the art practiced by Bujakowa was far from avant-garde, it was nevertheless characterised by values crucial to unique textiles, such as the authenticity of the material, a sense of colour, respect for local traditions and masterful technical skill.

The vibrant colours of Lviv

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Maria Bujakowa at the loom, embroidering floral cushions, 1968, photo: Bujak-Lenczowska

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Maria Bujakowa was born in Kolomyia but grew up in Lviv, after her family moved there. She began her studies at the State Technical School in the Faculty of Applied Arts, initially as an unofficial student and later as an enrolled, full-time student in the studio of Kazimierz Sichulski – who, according to legend, wasn’t fond of female artists, especially female painters, and who became famous for the remark: ‘What use is a paintbrush to a woman?’

Her school reports indicate that she was already beginning to stand out, even at that time, as an artist with a particular talent for weaving and designing tapestries and carpets, as well as for batik and graphic art. Years later, she said that she’d experienced a ‘kilim craze and a batik craze’ during her student years. She learned how to dye fabric at the dyeing laboratory of the Trade and Industry Association, and in 1926 she went to Vienna for a one-year course at the famous School of Arts and Crafts, where classes were taught by artists such as Rudolf von Larisch and Józef Hoffmann.

On her return, she took up weaving as a profession. She began working at Irena Petzold-Dawidowa’s kilim workshop. There, she dyed wool and designed patterns which, as her supervisor at the time recalled, were not only first-rate in terms of originality but also technically flawless – they were relatively easy for the weavers to transfer onto the kilim.

Bujakowa worked on her own projects during this time. She also began teaching – she organised workshops in embroidery, dressmaking and lace-making at vocational schools. Little is known about her creative period in Lviv – her work is mainly known from photographs of the geometric kilims she designed for commercial purposes. The artist herself often emphasised the importance of her early experiences with textiles. She also said that the vibrant colours of Lviv – much like her holidays in the countryside and the significance of handicrafts – were something that would stay with her forever.

A rebellion against women’s handicrafts

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Fragment of the Droga textile, 1975, and an armchair designed by students of the Kenar High School, with a kilim made by a student of the Zakopane Szpulki school, c. 1960, photo: D. Rumiancew / Tatra Museum in Zakopane

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‘It’s called Ład (order) because it’s short and pithy, only three letters long, but also because everything must be ładnie (pretty) with ład (order) in it,’ she once wrote. The agenda of the Ład Artists’ Cooperative, which specialised in the design and production of modern furniture, textiles, ceramics and other elements of interior design, focused on beauty, on the one hand, and utility, modern form and natural materials on the other. To a large extent, it seemed to reflect the artistic views of Bujakowa herself, who recognised the need to make beauty part of everyday life. The artist joined the cooperative as early as 1930, while still living in Lviv, but her involvement in its initiatives increased only after she moved to Warsaw.

In 1934, she arrived in the capital city with her husband, the mountaineer Jakub Bujak. She began working at the Girls’ Industrial School and later at the State Tailoring College. She also served as manager of the Inicjatywa Cooperative for Female College Graduates. Through this collaboration, she supervised the creation of three embroidered panels for the monumental tapestry series Jan III Sobieski, designed by Mieczysław Szymański for the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris.

In 2022, the textiles were donated to the Museum of Polish History in Warsaw. Prior to that, they had spent several decades in New York, where they remained after being exhibited there at the 1939 World’s Fair. In her assessment of the embroidery team’s work, Wanda Telakowska wrote:

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Szymański brought a bold painterly composition to the entire piece and a remarkable sensitivity to colour. Bujakowa contributed a refined mastery of embroidery, considerable intuition and an extraordinary understanding of how the visual form is shaped by the material, tools and techniques that are used. Thanks to her skills, each of the raw materials she used found its own unique expression in the embroidery.

At the same time, Bujakowa continued to collaborate with Ład, designing fabrics, carpets and tapestries. In 1936, she exhibited her work at the Art of the Interior exhibition at the Institute of Art Propaganda in Warsaw, as part of the Art of Embroidery section. The exhibition featured, among other things, her tapestries Zodiac Signs and Forest Animals, as well as linen vestments designed for the Batory – a ship which, as its designers hoped, was to become a unique ‘floating art gallery’.

Telakowska, mentioned above, wrote in the press about this section of the exhibition, stating that the female artists featured in it were revitalising embroidery and completely re-inventing it, challenging the ‘distorted taste of the masses’ and the ‘ladies’ handicrafts’ that adorned their living rooms.

A death in Cornwall, a new start in the Tatras

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"Regle" textile immediately upon completion in the garden in front of the artist's house in Kościelisko, 1972, photo: M. Bujak-Lenczowska

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Bujakowa spent World War II first in Lviv, then in the countryside near Tarnów. For her, 1945 proved to be a turning point. Not only because the war had ended, but also because this was when she found out that her husband, who had been living in England for several years, had died while climbing hills in Cornwall. At this point, most likely after encouragement from friends, she decided to move to Zakopane – a place where kilim-weaving traditions, linked to local craftsmanship, were intertwined with the recent post-war history of the Kilim Association and the Tarkos workshop run by Wanda Kossecka. Bujakowa intended to establish a branch of the Ład cooperative in the heart of the Tatra Mountains. She would later recall:

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I eventually received a letter authorising me to open a branch of the ‘Ład’ cooperative in Zakopane. My friends had found me. Zofia Czasznicka, Halina Karpińska-Kintopfowa in Warsaw, Krystyna Tołłoczko, Józef Różyski, Krystyna Szczepanowska, and the director of the School of Woodworking [Marian Wimmer] in Zakopane. And so it began. I returned to a community of people who shared my interests and were kind-hearted, eager to preserve our pre-war heritage.

And although Ład ultimately failed to gain a foothold in the Podhale region, Bujakowa found a place for herself in Zakopane. Together with Krystyna Szczepanowska, a friend and long-time colleague, she founded the Department of Arts and Crafts at the Samopomoc Chłopska Municipal Cooperative, which was later incorporated into the Zakopane Model Workshops (which in turn would form part of Cepelia in the 1950s). Bujakowa initially served as the artistic director of the weaving and embroidery department, supervising the weaving teams, and later as a designer and consultant working on her own projects.

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Tadeusz Brzozowski and Maria Bujakowa, 'Runners (The Run)' / 'Biegacze (Bieg)', 1956, embroidery and brocading on canvas, 310 x 190 cm, photo: Museum of Sports and Tourism in Warsaw

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In the cooperative, she once again worked on monumental fabric pieces for competitions, primarily using her own method of embroidery and appliqué on woollen backgrounds. In 1948, she collaborated with Michał Bylina on the tapestry Olympics, created for the London Olympic Games and exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and in the 1950s she worked twice with Tadeusz Brzozowski. She supervised the work of teams of embroiderers on Runners for the National Olympic Art Competition connected to the Melbourne Olympic Games, as well as Olifant, which represented Poland at the Milan Triennale in 1957.

Working with Brzozowski, a painter from Zakopane who was much younger than Bujakowa, was a source of great inspiration for her. As she later noted: ‘Previously, I lacked the courage to tackle large-scale compositional work that went beyond the scope of textile projects traditionally created by women.’ Observing Brzozowski’s respect for craftsmanship, his focus on subject matter, and the detachment that characterised his practice became a formative experience for Bujakowa. In addition to kilims, embroidered fabrics and lace doilies, she also designed what became a famous product known as the ‘fur rug’, which was made from scraps of fur cut into narrow strips. Since it was exceptionally cheap to produce, it soon became a permanent item in Cepelia’s product line. Its varied texture and colour scheme led to it having various nicknames, such as the ‘tiger’, ‘elk’, ‘zebra’ and ‘bear’.

Spools

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Fragment of the Chronicle of the State Podhale Vocational School for Girls, fashion show from 1949, archive of the Helena Modrzejewska Secondary Vocational School No. 2 in Zakopane (currently in the collection of the Tatra Museum)

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In Zakopane, Bujakowa also returned to teaching. At first, she taught at the famous ‘Szpulki’ (Spools) – as the School of Lace-Making, founded by Helena Modrzejewska in 1883, was known – where she specialised in embroidery and carpet-weaving. However, just a year later, in July 1946, she was appointed its headmistress and held this position for over 20 years until 1969. For the school, this was a period of continuous prosperity. Initially, there were only 88 pupils, but enrolment grew steadily and reached over 200 by the 1960s.

Even when conditions were difficult, Bujakowa continuously fought to ‘preserve elements of artistry’. The monumental lacework on a screen composed of flowers and slogans of Marxist philosophy designed by Bujakowa in the early 1950s, now in the collection of the Tatra Museum, is a symbol of political and social change. It wasn’t until the political thaw after Stalin’s death that the artist abandoned the principles of dialectical materialism.

Thanks to Bujakowa’s numerous pre-war connections, including artists associated with Ład and the Institute of Industrial Design, which was run by her friend Wanda Telakowska, new prospects for development opened up for the school and its students – for example, the opportunity to collaborate with modern institutions and do professional internships, which proved to be excellent preparation for their careers. The focus was not only on practical training but also on interdisciplinarity and a balance between creative and industrial projects.

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Maria Bujakowa with her textile artwork – wool lace embroidery, 'Kora' from the 'Demeter' series (lost, sold to Desa in 1972), 1970, photo: M. Bujak-Lenczowska

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For example, during the workshops, the students created woven pieces that were often based on Bujakowa’s own designs, such as Starlings in the Orchard and The Magnificent Ducks, which were later sold at Cepelia. In collaboration with students from the Fine Arts High School, they designed prototypes of upholstered armchairs, and in classes with Krystyna Szczepanowska they drew ‘folk-inspired’ prints for skirts and blouses manufactured by the Institute of Industrial Design. The programme included not only kilim-weaving and lace-making, but also drawing and the design of regional clothing.

The school, which had previously been of limited local significance and regarded merely as a peripheral vocational institution, was transformed by Bujakowa into an art school renowned for its modern kilims – which nevertheless retained their Zakopane character – spun from coarse, locally sourced, hand-woven wool. In 1962, after many years of hard work, the Vocational School of Artistic Weaving was finally established – an educational institution that not only taught excellent weaving and lace-making skills but also inspired artistic ambitions in its students. Graduating from the school allowed them to continue higher education at art academies.

Unfinished & still spoken against

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Maria Bujakowa, 'In the Triassic Swamps', 1979, exhibition at the Tatra Museum, photo: D. Rumiancew / Tatra Museum in Zakopane

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A few years after the vocational school was established, Bujakowa retired. However, her departure from the school didn’t mark the end of her artistic career. In fact, from the 1960s onwards, she became increasingly enthusiastic about creating unique individual pieces, and she allowed herself to experiment with colour and subject matter with increasing frequency. She usually chose her favourite technique: embroidery with wool yarn on a linen background.

During this period, she created various interesting works, such as a piece featuring embroidery on lace titled Zbójnicki, commissioned for the Polish National Triennial of Industrial and Handmade Textiles in 1972. She also created a series titled Demeter, dedicated to Greek nymphs, which has since been lost and is known only from photographs, as well as a textile work from 1979, titled In the Triassic Swamps with Dinosaurs, which fascinated the artist’s grandson at the time.

Some of these unique pieces have been preserved in her family’s collection, but the vast majority were sold by the auction house Desa to private collectors. Today, most of Bujakowa’s renowned works are in museum collections, including those of the Tatra Museum and the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź.

The artist continued to work until the very end of her life. She fell ill in the summer of 1984. Her final work was an embroidered piece with a title taken from Luke 2:34: The Symbol They Will Oppose. It was unfinished at the time of her death in January 1985.

Originally written in Polish, translated by Scotia Gilroy, May 2026

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