Bruno Schulz - photo - wikipedia
The show at the Royal Castle draws together over a hundred works by thirty Polish artists who fell under the spell of Schulz's whimsical literature.
“This exhibition is a journey through the imaginary world of Bruno Schulz, a journey which many of Poland's most outstanding artists wanted to take part in,” said Jan Boncza-Szablowski, one of the creators of the exhibition, in an interview with the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
Exhibits include pieces by late figures such as Tadeusz Kantor, Franciszek Starowiejski and Zdzislaw Beksinski.
The show also includes a curiosity in the form of a reconstructed portrait of Schulz by his friend and fellow artist and writer Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (aka Witkacy).
The original pastel portrait was lost during the Second World War, but Dr Anna Zakiewicz from the National Museum has endeavoured to reconstruct the work.
This year marks a double anniversary for Schulz.
He was born in 1892 in the town of Drohobycz, which was then a part of the autonomous province of Galicia, within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and which today lies in Ukraine.
In 1924, after Poland regained its independence, Schulz took up a job teaching art at the local secondary school.
His writings, first trifles that he sent to friends, were all in Polish.
He rarely ventured out of the town, which provided the main font of inspiration for his two collections of short stories, The Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy Cynamanowe), which was later published in English as The Street of Crocodiles, and The Sanatorium under the Hour-Glass (Sanatorium Pod Klepsydra).
During the war, Drohobycz fell first to the Soviets. Later, during the Nazi occupation, Schulz was herded into a Jewish Ghetto that the Germans created in the town.
He was shot down on the street by a Gestapo officer on 19 November 1942. (nh)