Teresa Tyszkiewiczowa / Gest / Gesture

“I never met Teresa Tyszkiewiczowa…” — these are the opening words of Professor Maria Hussakowska’s essay on the artist’s work. I, too, belong to the group of people who never met Teresa Tyszkiewiczowa, while the number of those who knew her is steadily diminishing. Today, many people know nothing about the artist, who died in 1992. Teresa Tyszkiewiczowa and her work have been forgotten.
The idea of holding an exhibition of Teresa Tyszkiewiczowa at Atlas Sztuki came from Professor Stanisław Fijałkowski, who repeatedly emphasised in conversation both the artist’s singularity and her important influence on the formation of the artistic community in Łódź. He pointed out that Tyszkiewiczowa was not only an artist engaged in non-geometric abstraction, but also someone who, alongside Władysław Strzemiński and Stefan Wegner, exerted a significant influence on the character of the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Łódź. Out of financial necessity, for many years Tyszkiewiczowa illustrated the children’s magazine “Świerszczyk”, books — including The Knights of the Cross — and school textbooks for children. She was very active, enjoyed the company of others and created a unique atmosphere around herself. She knew many important figures in cultural life and was friends with a number of them, including Tadeusz Kantor and Maria Jarema, Stanisław Fijałkowski and Jerzy Nowosielski. During the 1960s she ran a kind of artistic salon in Łódź, and the conversations held there influenced the work of many artists who frequented it.
The artist came from an aristocratic family with a strong religious tradition and a distinguished record of service to the Church. At the very least, mention should be made here of her aunt, St Ursula Ledóchowska, founder of the Congregation of the Ursuline Sisters of the Agonising Heart of Jesus, and of Blessed Maria Ledóchowska. Tyszkiewiczowa was interested in the life of the Church and read Teilhard de Chardin, returning to his thought for many years, as her surviving diaries attest.
The exhibition at Atlas Sztuki is a retrospective of Teresa Tyszkiewiczowa’s work. The earliest piece we will show is the 1938 painting Flowers, held in the collection of the Zamość Museum. Most of the other works on display were created during the artist’s Łódź period.
The works presented in the exhibition come from the collections of Muzeum Sztuki, the Museum of the City of Łódź, the National Museum in Szczecin, the Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum in Bydgoszcz, the National Museum in Wrocław, and private collections belonging to Cezary Pieczyński (Galeria Piekary), Joanna and Krzysztof Madelski (Galeria Ego), and Sławomir Boss (Galeria Boss). We will also show works owned by Jan W. Ledóchowski — the artist’s heir — and by other private individuals. I would like to thank all the people and institutions named above for making the works available.
In the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, I recommend the aforementioned essay on Teresa Tyszkiewiczowa’s work by Professor Maria Hussakowska, as well as the text by the exhibition’s curator, Janusz K. Głowacki.
In connection with the exhibition, and together with the Fundacja Instytut Wydawniczy Książka i Prasa, we are publishing Teresa Tyszkiewiczowa’s diaries from 1940 to 1983 in the Le Monde diplomatique/artystyka series. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jan W. Ledóchowski for consenting to the publication of the artist’s diaries. I also thank Professor Stanisław Fijałkowski for drawing our attention to Teresa Tyszkiewiczowa’s work.
I invite everyone interested in the work of Teresa Tyszkiewiczowa to Atlas Sztuki.