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 dramas. For many years a marginal...