The Ben Uri Research Unit (BURU) is happy to present the exhibition Franciszka Themerson: Stories from the Life, curated by Jasia Reichardt, which consists of her paintings and drawings of 1929 during her time as a student at the School of Fine Art in Warsaw, followed by her drawings of 1933, and concluding with examples of her early work in London.
Central to the display are three oil paintings of interiors – two never previously exhibited. ‘What is striking about the paintings,’ notes Jasia Reichardt in her catalogue introduction, ‘is not only the density of colour, so unfamiliar in the artist’s later work, but also that they are about interiors and the activities within them: dancing, dressmaking, eating. The black and white drawings of landscapes, as well as interiors, were made during students’ visit to a building that was perhaps a town hall, in Schnackenburg, Lower Saxony, and its surrounding landscape.
