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Lecture by Stanisław Przybyszewski combined with Maurice Maeterlinck's drama "Interior"

Stanisław Wyspiański1898

The National Museum in Warsaw

The National Museum in Warsaw
Warsaw, Poland

It is one of the three posters designed by Stanisław Wyspiański (1869–1907); poet; dramaturge; painter and set designer; whose professional activity also included book graphic design. The work was reproduced in colour lithography technique in the lithography printing house of A. Pruszyński in Cracow – a studio highly valued and popular among Cracow's artists; at the time run by Aureliusz Pruszyński's son; Zenon.

The poster announces a lecture by Stanisław Przybyszewski (1868–1927) titled Mistyka a Maeterlinck [Mysticism and Maeterlinck] preceding the premiere of the Interior drama by Maeterlinck in Teatr Miejski in Cracow; featuring Gabriela Zapolska; Irena Solska; Maria Przybyłko-Potocka and Maksymilian Hipolit Węgrzyn. Przybyszewski; a poet; dramaturge; journalist and ideologist of the Młoda Polska [Young Poland] artistic milieu; returned from abroad in 1889 and settled down in Cracow. As the editor of Cracow's biweekly literature and art magazine Życie (1897–1900); he assigned the role of art director to Wyspiański; he also collaborated with him on the occasion of other publishing endeavours.

In the poster advertising the play "Interior"; an uncommon elongated rectangle format emphasizes the horizontal layout based on a double portrait of a little girl. Created with grey drawing line in delicate yellows and celadons; it depicts Anna – the younger sister of a poet and playwright; Lucjan Rydl. The two graphics constitute the framework for the text created with Wyspiański's hand-writing.

As Paweł Ettinger (1866–1948); bibliophile; collector; outstanding expert in applied graphic design and art critic; wrote; Indeed; it is hard to find an illustration to the drama of the brilliant Belgian poet more adequate and more similar in spirit than this little face looking over the window with the expression of fear and anxiety in her wide-open eyes! Pale; faded colours of the drawing and greyish shade of paper emphasize this atmosphere even more. (P. Ettinger; On artistic posters in general and Polish ones in particular; Tygodnik Ilustrowany; 1904; no. 25; p. 496).

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  • Title: Lecture by Stanisław Przybyszewski combined with Maurice Maeterlinck's drama "Interior"
  • Creator: Stanisław Wyspiański
  • Creator Lifespan: 1869 - 1907
  • Creator Death Place: Cracow
  • Creator Birth Place: Cracow
  • Date: 1898
  • Inv. no.: Pl.17161/1
  • Type: Posters
  • Medium: lithography
The National Museum in Warsaw

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