Stefan Themerson

Stefan Themerson (1910–1988) was a Polish, later British poet, novelist, filmmaker, composer and philosopher.

Stefan Themerson was born in Płock in what was then part of the Russian Empire on 25 January 1910 and died in London on 6 September 1988. His father, Mieczysław Themerson, was a physician, social reformer and aspiring writer (some of his work was published) of Jewish descent. His mother was Ludwika Smulewicz. During the First World War Dr. Themerson served as a medical officer in the Tsar's army and the family lived in Riga, St. Petersburg and Wielkie Luki. In 1918 they returned to Płock, in an independent Poland, where Stefan attended the Władysław Jagiełło Gymnasium. During this time he first showed an interest in photography and also built a radio receiver. In 1928 Themerson went to Warsaw University to study physics. After a year, he transferred to the Warsaw Polytechnic to take up architecture but actually spent most of his time working at photography, collage and film-making. His first published piece of writing was also in 1928. He never formally left his studies but gradually withdrew to follow his other interests. Themerson met the brilliant art student Franciszka Weinles, in 1929. She graduated with distinction in 1931 and they married the same year in Warsaw.

During these years the Themersons lived and worked in Warsaw. Stefan contributed articles to various periodicals and prose and verse to school textbooks and wrote at least ten books for children which Franciszka illustrated. Pan Tom Buduje Dom, Mr Rouse Builds His House is still in print in Poland. Stefan also experimented with photograms and the two of them made five short experimental films Apteka The Pharmacy (1930), Europa (1931–1932), Drobiazg Melodyjny, Musical Moment (1933), Zwarcie, Short Circuit (1935) and Przygoda Człowieka Poczciwego, The Adventures of a Good Citizen (1937). These were shown with other experimental films of the time. All except Przygoda Człowieka Poczciwego, which remained in Warsaw, were lost in Paris in the Second World War, but the script for Europa, based on a poem by Anatol Stern was later published by the Themersons Gaberbocchus Press, illustrated by surviving stills from the film and Apteka was remade from descriptions of it when it first appeared, stills and storyboards. In 1935, with other young filmmakers, they founded a cooperative, S.A.F, Spółdzielnia Autorów Filmowych.

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