Unknown. © Franciszka Themerson
PEER REVIEW Artist William Cobbing on painter, publisher—and family friend—Franciszka Themerson.
PEER REVIEW Artist William Cobbing on painter, publisher—and family friend—Franciszka Themerson.
( 1 ) Cobbing, an experimental poet, was a leading force in Britain’s postwar cultural scene. He was a founding member of the Association of Little Presses, convenor of the Poets Conference and founder of the Writers Forum press. William, his grandson, is a performance artist best known for making sculptures.
I first came across the beguiling drawings of Polish-British artist Franciszka Themerson (1907–1988) when archiving the collection of my grandfather, the poet and publisher Bob Cobbing.1
To help give context to the collection of drawings and photographs, I contacted her niece, the esteemed writer and curator Jasia Reichardt, who had completed archiving Themerson’s works. Over conversations at her house, I grew more familiar with Themerson—not least through the paintings on the walls. Untitled—Multi figure (1972/3), hung above the staircase, is typical of the artist’s work: a compound figure, a body sprouting from the head, a smaller figure superimposed on the torso, sparsely painted with a visceral energy.
Similarly composed figures, albeit drawn in a more lyrical, linear way, populate many of the illustrations she made for Gaberbocchus Press, which she co-founded in 1948 with her husband, Stefan. The press was part of a milieu of small-scale artist-run presses at that time, and the Gaberbocchus Common Room—situated in the basement of their office—provided a meeting place for fellow artists and writers. My grandfather had long been friends with the Themersons, who lived down the road from him in West London. He also published Themerson’s drawings in his Writers Forum imprint and included her works in exhibitions at Drian Galleries.
The Gaberbocchus publication which stood out to me was the shocking, absurdist play Ubu Roi, written by Alfred Jarry and translated from French by Barbara Wright. Themerson had added her puckish drawings in lithium crayon directly onto the printing plate, responding to Wright’s handwritten text. The story follows the grotesque and barbaric Père Ubu, rendered by Themerson with childlike glee. It was a continuation of the absurdist drawings she’d been making in response to the brutality of World War II; the Themersons had moved from Poland to Paris in 1938, then volunteered for the Polish Army at the outbreak of war before fleeing to London.
Themerson’s drawings for Ubu Roi became a leitmotif for her practice for decades afterward, and the initial book illustrations led to stage and costume design for live adaptions of the play at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1954, and the Marionetteatern in Stockholm in 1964. At Reichardt’s house I had previously seen a collection of papier-mâché masks designed for the ICA production, which managed to retain much of the spontaneously contorted lines of Themerson’s drawings. They complement my grandfather’s photographs from the Stockholm performances, documenting the towering cutouts of her lyrical drawings on the stage.
It is no surprise that Themerson, who began as a painter, ended up applying her talents in such varied ways. As art critic Edward Lucie-Smith observed, “She enters into collaboration—or should I say a conspiracy—with the line, and awaits to see what the result will be.”
( 1 ) Cobbing, an experimental poet, was a leading force in Britain’s postwar cultural scene. He was a founding member of the Association of Little Presses, convenor of the Poets Conference and founder of the Writers Forum press. William, his grandson, is a performance artist best known for making sculptures.
