Biography Essay

Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz is now accepted as the outstanding Polish dramatist of the interwar years and one of the most colorful figures in the European avant-garde. A prolific and multitalented artist, he was also a painter, photographer, philosopher, novelist, aesthetician, and cultural critic who produced a total body of works of disconcerting dimensions. Even before the fall of Communism, Witkacy (his self-created pen name) had become a modern classic, assigned a place in the school curriculum, and the subject of innumerable scholarly books and articles. A huge exhibition of his paintings was held at the National Museum in Warsaw in 1989 and 1990, and a collected edition of his works in twenty-three volumes began to appear in 1992.

Recognition, however, has come slowly, and the story of Witkiewicz's career—both during his lifetime and posthumously—is as full of irony, paradox, and surprise as any of his...