Modus: Prace z historii sztuki (18.2018)

each other well. However, the drawings are much morę numerous, and they tell us
the most about the artist. In his sketchbooks, Blonder reveals himself completely,
we feel his erotic agitations, we sense some degree of malice towards his friends,
we accompany him when he is facing the death of his mother. But it is not just
about what happened in the artists life. We get to know his personality, his attitude
towards reality. A similar opportunity is afforded by reading his poems. In them,
we find a confirmation of what has already been said: a man extremely sensitive to
everything that went on around him. Blonder is not a participant in these events,
he stands aside and looks at the spectacle of the ensuing life. The latter is stunning
in the multitude of its manifestations, but that does not mean that the artist has
allowed himself to be seduced. He is bitter, sarcastic - both in his drawings, and
in his poems. He is a 20-year-old who has no illusions about reality. At the same
time, he is fascinated with life and with all that is happening around him. In the
same poem, he writes about deadness and hopelessness, but also about beauty:
“brazenly beautiful autumn”, “cool and clean nights”.4 This dual voice is very typi-
cal of his work. The shield of sarcasm and irony did not protect him completely;
cracks appeared within it.
The year 1931 began a new chapter in the life and work of the artist. His re-
lationship with Sabina Adler was a thing of the past; and probably in Kraków,
at the Academy, Blonder met Berta (Blima) Grunberg from Gródek Jagielloński
near Lwów (see: Fig. 7). Perhaps it was Blonder who drew in his friend, who was
much less determined than he was on political issues, to the left-wing milieu of the
Kraków Group that was developing at the time. For the next few years, they would
constitute an inseparable tandem. Her silhouette pops up constantly throughout
the pages of his sketchbooks: Blima at the easel, at the table, on the bed, cheerful,
upset (see: Fig. 3). Her images are side to side with drawings of the colleagues from
the Group: Lewicki (see: Fig. 4), Stern, Schwanenfeld, and others. All together, they
participated in events that would quickly gain the legendary status in Kraków s ar-
tistic milieu. They came here to the “Polish Athens”, from many distant provinces,
to become civilized, to get some exposure to real art at the Kraków Academy of
Fine Arts. Jonasz Stern recalled this period: “The beginning of the Kraków Group
[...] was probably the best time of my life. There were great hopes at the time, there
were beliefs that we would destroy the old world and build a new one”.5 Similar
atmosphere is felt also in Blonder s drawings from those years. The stroke of hand,
which describes the silhouettes of his friends, is determined and strong. He works
quickly, without going into details, but he attains the essence. His works are fuli of
expression, and it seems that they reflect very well the atmosphere accompanying
the artists’ goings-on. There is a lot of carefree feeling and fun, as well as work at the
Academy, tempestuous discussions stretching long into the night, fooling around
to the sounds of mandolins, watching the whole entourage closely, with a pinch of
salt, with slight irony.
However, not everything goes as well as one would wish. They are poor; they
have no money to buy paints, not to mention other things. And the world that they
4 Special Collection of the Institute of Art at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, The
Sasza Blonder archive, Index No.773-11-3 (1929-1931), p. 122 v.
5 A.M. Potocka, Ostatni wywiad z Jonaszem Sternem [The last interview with Jonasz Stern],
“Odra” ,1988, issue 11, p. 30.


7. Berta (Blima) Grunberg
and Sasza Blonder, 1930S,
photo from the collection of
Helene Feydy-Blondel and
Marc Blondel.
-> see p. 156

From provinces to the metropolis - the case of Sasza Blonder

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