Władysław Strzemiński (1893-1952) – painter, designer of functional printing, art theoretician, creator of the theory of Unism ("Unizm w malarstwie", 1928), author of books: "Kompozycja w przestrzeni, obliczenia rytmu czasoprzestrzennego" (written in 1932 together with Katarzyna Kobro) and "Druk Funkcjonalny" (1935). He was a member of the avant-garde group Blok (1924-1926) and co-founded Praesens (1926-1929) and a.r. group (revolutionary artists) (1929–1936).
He taught drawing at junior high schools in Brzeziny and Koluszki. In 1931, he moved with his wife, Katarzyna Kobro, to Łódź, where he became headmaster of the State Vocational School No. 10. He was a lecturer at the State Higher School of Visual Arts (PWSSP, Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Sztuk Plastycznych) in Łódź from 1945, where he created the pioneering Department of Spatial Art. In 1950, he was expelled from the university on charges of "formalism" and not respecting the doctrine of socialist realism. Today, the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź bears his name.
He explored the problem of unionism first in the flat compositions of 1924-1929 and then in the textured, monochrome canvases of 1931-1934. Composition No. 13 is among the latter, but neither it nor the others can be said to be a complete implementation of the theory. Creating the same tension at every point in the painting remained an idea to strive for. (Museum of Art in Łódź, Władysław Strzemiński, "Unist Composition 13" (1934), msl.org.pl, accessed ??????.2023).
The author of the photograph is Eugene Haneman (1917-2014). Haneman graduated from the High School of Photography in Warsaw. During the occupation, he worked in the "Portret przy kawie" workshops at Foksal Street and "Van Dyck" Street in Jerozolimskie Avenue. Foksal and "Van Dyck" in Aleje Jerozolimskie. Haneman was equipped with a folding, small-format "Baldina" camera, borrowed from Kazimierz Greger – the owner of the "Foto-Greger" photographic studio and photographic shop – and documented fights in Śródmieście and Powiśle.
After the war, he started working at the Polish Army Film Studio in Łódź, from where he was posted to Kraków as a cameraman and correspondent for the Polish Film Chronicle. He returned to Łódź in 1946 and continued his work as a photographer for documentary and educational films. In 1947, he was accepted as a member of the Union of Polish Artists Photographers (card no. 25). In the years 1949-1953 he worked as a cameraman at the Educational Film Studio in Łódź. From 1953 to 2005, he taught photography at the Łódź Film School.
He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture. He was also awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. He was an honorary member of the Łódź Photographic Society. He presented his photographs in many exhibitions at home and abroad. In 2013, the ŁTF Photography Gallery at 102 Piotrkowska Street was named after him. | RP
