Jadwiga Mrozowska as Psyche. Melpomene’s Portfolio

The graphic work comes from Teka Melpomeny [Melpomene Portfolio] published in 1904 in Kraków under the direction of S. Szreniawa-Rzecki. The portfolio contains almost 40 satirical lithographic caricatures depicting actors from Kraków's stages. They were prepared by Young Poland artists: W. Bystrzyński, K. Frycz, S. Kuczborski, A. Procajłowicz, S. Szreniawa-Rzecki, K. Sichulski, W. Wojtkiewicz all regulars at the famous Jama Michalika. The prints were made free of charge thanks to Zenon Pruszyński, who ran a famous Kraków lithography workshop, and the funds obtained from the sale of Teka were to contribute to the theatre's pension fund.

Witold Wojtkiewicz portrayed Jadwiga Stanisława Mrozowska-Toeplitz in the role of Psyche in Jerzy Żuławski's play Eros and Psyche, which premiered on the stage of the Municipal Theatre in Krakow on 27 February 1904. Despite lacking stage experience and acting training, Mrozowska quickly gained popularity. Until 1905, she was affiliated with the city theatres of Lviv and Kraków, and appeared on the stages of Warsaw, Łódź, Vilnius and Grodno. In 1907 she left for Italy. Her passion was travelling. During an expedition to Asia she discovered, among other things, a pass in the Pamir Mountains, which was named after her.

The role of Psyche in Żuławski's drama, devoted to the struggle between spirit (Psyche) and matter (Blaks), is one of Mrozowska's best stage creations. Wojtkiewicz's Psyche, portrayed as a four-armed candlestick with fading candles, is characteristic of the art of an artist who readily employed grotesque, expressive deformation of the human figure. The actress's face, frozen in stillness and motionless like a mask, the elongated figure in a dress that envelops the body and widens at the bottom, and the extinguished candles with waving streaks of smoke are guided by a fluid, flexible line, typical of Wojtkiewicz.

The artist's work is considered one of the most original phenomena in the art of Young Poland. It introduces a world of grotesque and lyrical poetics, referring to the imagination, dreams, deformed reality with figures symbolizing the pain of existence, existential fears and obsessions. The participants in Wojtkiewicz's melancholic visions were comedians, clowns, marionettes, child characters suspended between the real world and the realm of illusion.

Anna Hałata