Unposted Letters

Letters, diaries, drawings and official documents tell the wartime story of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, artists, writers and film-makers.

In 1938 Franciszka and Stefan Themerson moved from Warsaw to Paris. Who were they? They made avant-garde films in Poland in the 1930s. She was a painter, he was a writer. Why did they go to Paris? Because Paris was the centre of the art world, and as Stefan said: "if one wrote, painted or made films, one had to be in Paris".

When the war broke out, they volunteered for the Polish Army. Stefan stayed in France, Franciszka escaped to London withthe Polish Government in Exile. They were separated until the summer of 1942. 150 of their letters survive, as do 150 telegrams, Stefan's diaries, official documents, and Franciszka's drawings, which she called 'Unposted Letters', and which provide the title of this book.

The documents in this beautifully produced and illustrated book articulate the inner life of two remarkable individuals borne on an erratic current of events over which they hadno control. In London, they made two more films. And after the war, they founded the Gaberbocchus Press and published books by Alfred Jarry, Kurt Schwitters, Bertrand Russell among others, as well as their own, startlingly original works.

Benelux: De Harmonie, Amsterdam