The second film, Europa (1932), was a screen adaptation of Anatol Stern’s futurist poem of that title. Anatol Stern recalled his first meeting with Stefan, who suggested that Europa could be made into a film. Naturally, I accepted the proposal with easily understand:
Naturally, I accepted the proposal with easily understandable enthusiasm. To encounter this kind of proposal in a country that considered the experimental films of René Clair, Man Ray and Buñuel to be faddish and miraculous – was a wonderful, heartening surprise. We discussed the film script. Then Stefan and Franciszka Themerson brought me the finished script. I made almost no corrections to it; frankly, I was so exasperated that I could not even afford to be critical of the Themersons’ work. I was well acquainted with the thorny path of the creators of new art in Poland.
The film was silent, and so Stern’s poem was read during the screening to explain the relationship between the words and the images.
In 1938 the Themersons moved to Paris and their films were stored at Vitfer Laboratory from which they were looted by the Nazis during the Second World War. Europa was lost. The film was very important to the Themersons and in 1962 they published the English translation of Stern’s poem with the same design as the original 1929 edition. In 1983/84 Stefan Themerson made a 7-minute reconstruction of the film from the surviving stills with a voice over, at the London Film-makers Co-op. Unexpectedly the original 35mm film Europa was found in 2019 in the Berlin Bundesarchiv and then restituted to the Themerson Estate in London. The newly discovered Europa had its first official screening in 2021, with music composed by Lodewijk Muns, at the British Film Institute, where the 35mm original film is now deposited.
In 1933,the Themerson made Drobiazg Melodyjny [Moment Musical]. This film, about a collection of decorative objects was made for Wanda Golińska and was the Themerson’s first sound film. Zwarcie (Short Circuit), commissioned by the Institute of Social Affairs, followed in 1935. The film warned viewers of the dangers of careless use of electricity. Music for this film was composed by Witold Lutosławski.
The Themersons’ last film made in Poland, in 1937, The Adventure of a Good Citizen (Przygody Człowieka Poczciwego), had a subtitle: 'irrational humoresque’. The hero of the story overhears a sentence addressed to two men carrying a wardrobe: ‘There won’t be a hole in heaven if you even walk backwards’, which prompts him to walk backwards himself. An unexpected adventure follows. The music for the film was composed by Stefan Kisielewski.
American artist Bruce Checefsky reconstructed Pharmacy and Moment Musical – and these films can be seen in the film library of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.
In 1935, together with filmmakers who had previously been associated with the START group of avant-garde artists, that was dissolved by the authorities, the Themersons founded the Film Authors’ Cooperative, together with Wanda Jakubowska, Aleksander Ford and Stanisław Wohl. The Themersons also edited their bilingual magazine f.a, of which 2 numbers were published, the first in Polish and French; and the second in Polish and English. Both were devoted to art film.
Also, during the 1930s, apart from work on film, the Themersons also produced books for children, written by Stefan and illustrated by Franciszka. They also contributed texts and images to many of the children’s magazines published in Poland at the time during the decade.
These were not simply illustrations. For the Themersons, the book was artistically a unity. A graphic text. The text, the typography, the illustrations were as important as the word. Yes, Franciszka did illustrations for other books, for example Dancing with a Needle and Thread by Brzechwa or Flammarion’s publications, but this was a commisional activity. When they went to France and then to England, that’s what they mainly did for a living. Their own books – not only for children but also for adults – were a visual and textual whole.
After its outbreak of World War II, when the Themersons were already in Paris, Franciszka became employed as illustrator and cartographer for the Polish Government in Exile, which moved to London in 1940 taking their team with them. Meanwhile, Stefan joined the Polish army in France, which led to the Themersons’ two year separation during the war. These two years are documented in the book, Niewysłane Listy: Listy, Dzienniki, Rysunki, Dokumenty, 1940–42. [Unposted Letters: Letters, Diaries, Drawings, Documents. 1940-1942].
In London work on films continued. In 1943, they made a 10-minute film, Calling Mr. Smith, hoping to draw the viewers’ attention to the tragedy of the war in Poland. There was a problem, because the British censors requested that the image of a figure hanging from the gallows be removed. The Themersons refused, so the film was not shown in public cinemas. Their last film, The Eye and the Ear dealt with the translation of sound into images. It was based on Julian Tuwim texts to four of Karol Szymanowski’s songs, Słopiewnie.
In 1948 the Themersons founded Gaberbocchus Press, a publishing house whose name was a Latinisation of ‘Jabberwocky’ from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. Over 31 years, Gaberbocchus published some 60 titles. The authors, apart from the Themersons themselves, included James Laughlin, Hugo Manning, Raymond Queneau, Bertrand Russell, Kurt Schwitters, Stevie Smith, Anatole Stern. One notable work was Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, published in English for the first time.
In 1957, The Themersons established the Common Room – a regular meeting place for artists, and scientists, where readings, exhibitions and discussions took place. The Common Room was active for 2 years. Franciszka designed masks, and later costumes and sets for the puppet adaptation of Ubu Roi in Stockholm’s Marionetteatern, directed by Michael Meschke in 1964. Involved for several decades with Ubu, she made a comic strip of the play which was later published in six languages.
Apart from designing sets and costumes for the theatre, Franciszka painted, drew, and taught at Bath Academy of Art and Wimbledon School of Art. She didn’t belong to any art group or movement. When asked about her work, she explained how she arrived at a sort of paintings that she called Bi-Abstract combining abstraction with figuration:
And then something strange happened. My gentlemen in bowler hats started to change. They started to forget about their bowler hats, about being important. They stopped being funny. Here and there they dared to show after themselves that they were capable of suffering. They stopped being gentlemen – they became men, and sometimes women. They were no longer ashamed to express fears or worries, and did so without an expressionistic intrusion into the audience’s feelings.
Source: readings from F. Themerson, Obrazy Bi-abstrakcyjne, trans. K. Kopcińska
In the same reading, Themerson described how pleased she was when one critic called her paintings ‘white contemporary cave paintings’.
