Abstract
Teresa Żarnower (1897, Warsaw, Poland–1949, New York, United States), a Polish Constructivist artist of Jewish descent who was forced to emigrate abroad during World War II, became a dominant figure working for the Polish government in exile. She produced a series of photomontages for a book titled The Defense of Warsaw, which was published in 1942 by a “Polish Labor Group” in New York. Żarnower used her technical expertise in photomontage to create new configurations of war photographs documenting Nazi Germany’s attack on Poland in 1939. She chose this shocking and politically loaded content to gain credibility and global attention for her work. Drawing on Benjamin Buchloh’s essay From Faktura to Factography, the aim of this study is to analyze the factographic paradigm in the usage of war photography and in the context of the esthetics of constructivist photomontage. The focus will lie on its mnemonic and archival functions, further highlighting the montage’s function as a key form of social memory model.
Highlights
The first and only monograph on Polish artist Teresa Żarnower was published in 2014 under the title Teresa Żarnowerówna.1 Artystka Końca Utopii (1897–1949) [Teresa Żarnower (1897–1949)
Drawing on Benjamin Buchloh’s essay From Faktura to Factography, the aim of this study is to analyze the factographic paradigm in the usage of war photography and in the context of the esthetics of constructivist photomontage
Muzeum Sztuki has a strong avant-garde history as one of the first European institutions to establish a collection of modern art, led by avant-garde artist Władysław Strzemiński (1893, Minsk, Belarus–1952, Łódź, Poland)
Summary
The first and only monograph on Polish artist Teresa Żarnower was published in 2014 under the title Teresa Żarnowerówna. Artystka Końca Utopii (1897–1949) [Teresa Żarnower (1897–1949). The first and only monograph on Polish artist Teresa Żarnower was published in 2014 under the title Teresa Żarnowerówna.. An Artist of the End of Utopia], by Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, Poland.. Muzeum Sztuki has a strong avant-garde history as one of the first European institutions to establish a collection of modern art, led by avant-garde artist Władysław Strzemiński (1893, Minsk, Belarus–1952, Łódź, Poland). Along with his wife Katarzyna Kobro (1898, Moscow, Russia–1951, Łódź, Poland), Strzemiński’s work has been internationally researched and widely documented (for instance by Yve-Alain Bois in Painting as model, 1990) (Bois 1990)—in stark contrast to Żarnower, whose art has been little investigated. The clear lack of resources and material gathered on her work, in conjunction with the geographic propagation of the available work across several European countries and in the United
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