Witkacy: The Scandalising Portrait Artist
Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz was a multifaceted Polish artist who created paintings, dramas, novels and photographs. Thanks to his valued, Interwar-era artworks, this creator, also known as Witkacy, holds a unique place in Poland’s cultural landscape. In this article, Culture.pl focuses on his extensive practice of painted portraits, which produced thousands of intriguing pieces. Many of them were created under the influence of various narcotics – giving rise to the scandalising legend of Witkacy the drug addict.
'Self-Portrait' by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, photo: Wikimedia Commons Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885-1939), aka Witkacy, is one of the most celebrated – and shocking – Polish artists. He’s remembered as much for his wild bohemian temperament as for creating numerous plays, photographs and books, like the 1927 novel Farewell to Autumn or the famous 1932 Narcotics, a kind of treatise on drugs.
But also, from an early age, the artist was encouraged by his father – the valued painter and art theoretician Stanisław Witkiewicz – to pursue painting. Witkacy first presented his paintings in the year 1901:
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Witkacy debuted as a painter at the age of sixteen […] at the Municipal Library in Zakopane, where he exhibited two of his landscapes brought from vacation in Lithuania. Both pieces were warmly received by the critics. Some even whispered that Witkacy was a more talented painter than his father.
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From ‘Witkacy: Portrecista Pokątny’ (Witkacy: The Illicit Portraitist), Niezlasztuka.net, 18 Nov 2017, trans. MK
Later, Witkacy studied painting at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts, under such acclaimed artists as Jan Stanisławski and Józef Mehoffer. Despite his talent and education, as a grown man – newly returned to Poland from the front of the Russian Revolution – Witkacy had trouble earning money through his art. The artistic oil paintings he was creating (e.g. 1922’s The Temptation of St Anthony II), as well as the numerous dramas he was writing, weren’t finding many buyers or audiences.
It was due to financial difficulties that in the year 1925, Witkacy decided to give up ‘pure’ or entirely artistic painting for what he considered ‘applied’ art – creating portraits on commission. In order to become a successful portraitist, he founded the S.I. Witkiewicz ‘Firma Portretowa’, or Portrait Firm.
'Portrait of Maria Nawrocka' by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, 1925, photo: courtesy of Museum of Central Pomerania in Słupsk Even though Witkacy turned to a more practical approach for his painting, he wasn’t going to make traditional, boring portraits. His free artistic soul and disposition of a bohemian socialite prevented him from going down that path. To reserve himself a large amount of artistic freedom in his portrait-making practice, he drafted a set of rules that would govern the functioning of his company (which actually included no one other than himself) – including relations with clients.
These half-tongue-in-cheek, half-serious regulations first appeared in the catalogue to the 1925 exhibition of Witkacy’s portraits that took place at the Garliński Salon in Warsaw. That event constituted the official beginning of the Portrait Firm’s existence.
For example, the firm’s regulations – which were updated in 1928 – stated that clients weren’t allowed to critique Witkacy’s work in any way:
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The client isn’t permitted to express any criticism whatsoever. The client may not appreciate the portrait, but the firm cannot allow even the smallest remarks to be made without its special authorisation. If the firm would allow for such a luxury – of listening to clients’ opinions – it would’ve gone mad long ago.
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From www.witkacy.hg.pl/firma/firma.htm, trans. MK
If you didn’t like your portrait, you could reject it, paying only a third of the fee. But you couldn’t give any reasons for doing that … at least not to Witkacy.
Amongst various other things, the regulations dealt with the number of modelling sessions it would take to make a portrait. These were typically no more than five, but up to 20 in the case of very large representations showing the entire body. The rules also made it clear that the artist worked using pastels, crayons, pencils and coal. This choice of materials was most likely dictated by two reasons: they were cheaper than oil paints and allowed for a quicker execution.
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'Portrait of Ludwik Kotulski' by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, 1928, photo: Culture.pl
Possibly the most important section of the firm’s regulations was the one listing the types of portraits on offer. There were five basic types, ranging from A to E.
Type A was the most detailed one, allowing for a more faithful representation of the model. In these portraits, Witkacy would purposefully beautify the sitter, typically portraying them against fantastical backgrounds consisting, for example, of exotic plants and landscapes. This type was recommended for women – and also the most expensive one. The cost of having a Type A portrait made was equal to 350zł, which, at the time, was the equivalent of a decent month’s salary.
According to the artist, Type B was:
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A more characteristic sort, but without any elements of caricature. […] Approach to the model – objective.
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From www.witkacy.hg.pl/firma/firma.htm, trans. MK
This was the kind ordered most often by the company’s clients. The price for such a portrait was 250zł.
Type C was made only for Witkacy’s friends, free of charge. One couldn’t order such a piece – it had to be offered. The artist created portraits of this kind, which he wrote approached ‘abstract composition’, under the influence of various psychoactive substances. These experimental pieces often turned out quite bizarre.
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You could also order an imitation of Type C, created by Witkacy in a sober state. Such a portrait was tagged as Type D and cost 100zł.
Type E was, according to the regulations:
You could also order an imitation of Type C, created by Witkacy in a sober state. Such a portrait was tagged as Type D and cost 100zł.
Type E was, according to the regulations:
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A free psychological interpretation according to the firm’s intentions.
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From www.witkacy.hg.pl/firma/firma.htm, trans. MK
Most of Witkacy’s Type E portraits show women that he was friends with or effeminate men. It’s hard to establish how much the artist charged for the execution of such a piece.
It ought to be mentioned, though, that Witkacy wasn’t very strict in adhering to the somewhat curious rules he had devised. Elements of one type would frequently creep into another, making many of his pieces mixes of various types. Nevertheless, the artist would always sign his portraits with the type (or types) they belonged to, such as ‘T. A’ or ‘T. B+d+E’.
'Portrait of Teodor Białynicki-Birula' by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, 1928, photo: courtesy of Museum of Central Pomerania in Słupsk After the exhibit at the Garliński Salon, it didn’t take long for the firm to become a success: Witkacy’s portrait skills came into demand. From 1925 until his death in 1939 (Witkacy committed suicide shortly after the outbreak of World War II), he created thousands of portraits – the exact number isn’t known but is estimated to be no higher than 7,000.
As a rule of thumb, Witkacy would make portraits at his home in Zakopane. But occasionally, he would also provide his services when travelling to other places. Here’s how the functioning of the Portrait Firm is described in Witkacy, a bilingual (Polish and English) album dealing with the artist’s visual output, published by Bosz in 2015:
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The portraits made by the Firm […] depicted the sitter in bust form, full frontal or ‘en trois quatre’, or sometimes showed just the head, which might occasionally be mounted on a base or on bird’s legs, or perhaps adorned with an animal’s tail or something equally absurd (e.g. a fancifully rolled-up penis.) On rare occasions he included the sitter’s arms or whole body; such portraits were, naturally, relatively more expensive.
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From ‘Witkacy’ by Anna Żatkiewicz, trans. Jessica Taylor-Kucia
Apart from portraying ordinary clients, Witkacy also made likenesses of his friends and many celebrated Poles of his day, like the painter Rafał Malczewski or the writer Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński. Here are some examples of the Portrait Firm’s works.
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A classic Type A portrait is the 1925 piece showing Maria Nawrocka, the wife of the Zakopane dentist Włodzimierz Nawrocki. Witkacy paid for the dental care he received from Nawrocki with portraits showing members of the doctor’s family. In this particular portrait, you can see an elegant representation of Mrs Nawrocka against a background showing a wondrous landscape with plants and fruit.
The 1928 portrait of Doctor Ludwik Kotulski is a good example of a Type B work. It includes a faithful likeness of Mr Kotulski shown on a background depicting an outstretched woman – a symbol of the doctor’s area of practice, which was women’s health.
The portrait of Witkacy’s friend, the radiologist Teodor Białynicki-Birula, from the same year is a fine specimen of a Type D piece (we’ll get to Type C in a moment). The eerie colours and transformations of the sitter’s face give a clearly psychedelic effect.
The 1929 portrait showing the head of the actress Nena Stachurska on what appears to be a hen’s leg is tagged as a Type E work. Stachurska was another of Witkacy’s friends and involved with Zakopane’s Formist Theatre, which he co-founded in the 1920s.
'Portrait of a Man' by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, 1926, photo: Wikimedia Commons A special mention should be made of Type C portraits. These are possibly the most extravagant of the lot, as they were intentionally made under the influence of various intoxicants to highlight their effects on Witkacy’s creative process. Many of them were created at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s during cocaine parties held at the Zakopane home of the aforementioned doctor Teodor Białynicki-Birula.
The Type C portraits show deeply transfigured faces, often drawn with abrupt, sketchy lines and frequently filled with bright colours. Witkacy is also known to have made portraits under the influence of other drugs, such as hashish or peyote. Interestingly, some of the narcotics the artist took can affect vision, which seems to be reflected in the form of a number of his Type C portraits.
It’s worth adding, however, that Witkacy wasn’t a ‘casual junkie’ but rather an experimenter curious with how drugs may influence art:
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Witkacy’s narcotic séances, which he and other initiates called ‘orgies’, gave rise to scandalous legends of drug addiction which were relished during his life and even after the War. Eventually, Witkacy’s friend and the main participant of these ‘orgies’, doctor Białynicki-Birula deemed it necessary to refute such harmful and baseless accusations in writing (in the article ‘Witkacy Wasn’t a Drug Addict’ published in the Express Wieczorny newspaper, issue No. 161, 1947 – ed.). After all, this wasn’t an addiction but a fully conscious and systematic campaign. Any interest usually evaporated after reaching the last potentialities of experimenting with a given narcotic.
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From ‘Witkacy’ by Anna Żatkiewicz, trans. Jessica Taylor-Kucia
'Portrait of Nena Stachurska' by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, 1929, photo: Wikimedia Commons During a single party at Doctor Białynicki-Birula’s, Witkacy could make a dozen or so portraits. The artist gave many of the works created in this fashion to his host as gifts. An interesting example of a Type C portrait is Portrait of a Man from 1926. In it, you can see many of the characteristic traits of Witkacy’s drug-influenced creativity.
Curiously, the portraitist would sign his pieces with symbols denoting the substances he was under the influence of while at work. For example, ‘Co’ stands for cocaine, ‘Et’ stands for ether, ‘P’ stands for peyote and so on… But such notes weren’t limited only to these drugs. In various portraits by Witkacy, you can find annotations that he was under the influence of beer (‘pyfko’), coffee (‘Cof.’) or pipe smoke (‘FZZ’).
In this manner, he would also provide other details – for example, that a portrait was created almost in the dark (‘p.p.c.’) or that he hadn’t smoked or had a drink (the latter indicated by ‘Nπ’) in a certain number of days, accompanied by the amount. Some of Witkacy’s portraits contain quite a bit of such intriguing information…
Heads conjoined at the cheeks
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'Falsehood of a Woman' by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, 1927, photo: National Museum in Warsaw
Witkacy also made double portraits and portraits of children. One of his best-known double portraits is 1927’s Falsehood of a Woman – Self-Portrait with Maryla Grossman. In this piece (described by its creator as Type A), you can see the figure of the sitter, Maryla Grossman, as well as a representation of Witkacy… painting a clearly visible portrait of Maryla Grossman. Here’s how this unusual artwork is described in the aforementioned album Witkacy:
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The portrait itself was made in the ‘slick’ type A, i.e. photographically identical to the sitter, but the ‘portrait within the portrait’ displayed on the easel in the background is marked with the letter D and fulfils the criteria for this portrait type. It shows an expressively transformed female face that is less a portrait than an autonomous artistic creation […]. In this way the artist not only demonstrated his opinion of the two-facedness of capricious women, but above all pointed up the arbitrariness of the creative process, whose outcome depends on the convention adopted.
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From ‘Witkacy’ by Anna Żatkiewicz, trans. Jessica Taylor-Kucia
In this piece, the portraitist himself is turned toward the viewer with a daemonic grin on his face. Other double portraits that Witkacy created are also somewhat disturbing, showing two heads conjoined at the cheeks or rooted in a single stem.
Children were typically portrayed by Witkacy sitting behind a table with fruit on it. In the case of academically inclined young ones, he would draw them with a notebook and writing implements close by.
If you’d like to view some of Witkacy’s amazing portraits in person, you may very well do so. Although many of them are in private hands, plenty can be found in museums. The biggest museum collection of Witkacy’s portraits can be found at the Museum of Central Pomerania in Słupsk – it counts almost 300 pieces. You can also encounter the Portrait Firm’s artworks at the National Museum in Kraków or the Museum of Art in Łódź.
Written by Marek Kępa, Nov 2019
