DOI Artikel:
Krzysztofowicz-Kozakowska, Stefania: Stara, sercu memu bardzo droga bestyo
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26693#0086
84
Stefania Krzysztofowicz-Kozakowska
“You old beast, so close to my heart”
Sum mary
Feliks Jasieńskis private correspondence was not discovered by the National Museum in
Kraków until the 1950s, which was nearly thirty years after the Museum received his en-
tire collection. Found in a hiding place perfectly contrived in one of his desks, it compris-
es letters, postcards and visiting cards sent in 1883-1923 by the most celebrated figures of
Polish cultural life to the addressee: a promoter, champion and sponsor of artists; an art
cołlector and dealer; a dictator to the artistic life of Kraków in the age of Young Poland;
a sensitive eccentric, a subtle connoisseur, an arrogant and impertinent dilettante and an
enfant terrible of his time; a writer and art historian; a musician, composer, musicologist
and musical critic.
The volume of the correspondence and the problems it raises forced the Museum to
make a selection and narrow down the review of it to several subject areas discussed in
several chapters.
Correspondence with the literary world with which Feliks Jasieński was integrated by
virtue of his work, is presented in the chapter My Young Writer, which comprises reviews
of on the book Manggha. Promenades a travers le monde, l’art et les idees, the ąuarterly
“Lamus”, and the publication Sztuka Polska. Malarstwo, and excerpts from his correspon-
dence with the composer Konstanty Górski, the poet Maria Komornicka, the playwright
Gabriela Zapolska and the poet Zenon “Miriam” Przesmycki.
Letters to and from Stanisław Witkiewicz, Stefan Żeromski and Edward Raczyński,
which are brought together in a chapter called My Friend! and which focus on Feliks
Jasieńskis “Sztuka” Club in Kraków, and the bulkiest portion of the correspondence,
headed My Man of Gold and To Our Dearest Supporter form separate parts. The latter
two show how Feliks Jasieńsks art collections developed, and discuss letters from art-
ists such as Józef Pankiewicz, Stanisław Dębicki, Leon Wyczółkowski, Jacek Malczewski,
Olga Boznańska, Ferdynand Ruszczyć, or those whose offers of artworks were rejected by
Jasieński: Tymon Niesiołowski and Wojciech Kossak. Problems of not only artistic naturę
but also artists’ opinions on and interference with the way Jasieński built his collection
recur in Jasieńskis mail, just like comments on his holding, methods of making financial
deals as well as purchase or exchange offers. For example the poet Maria Komornicka
confesses: “...Nothing new comes to my mind”; the poet Tadeusz Miciński: “I am sub-
mitting to you my latest book”; the playwright Gabriela Zapolska: “...Can I ask you for
a copy of Manggha? I am going to write a review”; the novelist Stefan Żeromski reported:
“They are demonstrating Polish art fervently here [i.e. in Zakopane] at art and literaturę
evening salons”. Ferdynand Ruszczyć wrote: “From the depth of my heart I congratulate
on your achievement”, referring to Sztuka Polska. His relationships with friends can be
traced in the words of the sculptor Olga Niewska (“I am using your ship skin... and taking
good care of it”); the painter Olga Siemaszkowa, who reported on her financial troubles;
the painter Józef Pankiewicz, who outlined an ambitious plan to set up the Polish Insti-
tute of Fine Arts in Paris, which was later to become affiliated to Krakows Academy of
Fine Arts; the painter Józef Mehoffer, who complained that “...a hundred-headed hydra is
Stefania Krzysztofowicz-Kozakowska
“You old beast, so close to my heart”
Sum mary
Feliks Jasieńskis private correspondence was not discovered by the National Museum in
Kraków until the 1950s, which was nearly thirty years after the Museum received his en-
tire collection. Found in a hiding place perfectly contrived in one of his desks, it compris-
es letters, postcards and visiting cards sent in 1883-1923 by the most celebrated figures of
Polish cultural life to the addressee: a promoter, champion and sponsor of artists; an art
cołlector and dealer; a dictator to the artistic life of Kraków in the age of Young Poland;
a sensitive eccentric, a subtle connoisseur, an arrogant and impertinent dilettante and an
enfant terrible of his time; a writer and art historian; a musician, composer, musicologist
and musical critic.
The volume of the correspondence and the problems it raises forced the Museum to
make a selection and narrow down the review of it to several subject areas discussed in
several chapters.
Correspondence with the literary world with which Feliks Jasieński was integrated by
virtue of his work, is presented in the chapter My Young Writer, which comprises reviews
of on the book Manggha. Promenades a travers le monde, l’art et les idees, the ąuarterly
“Lamus”, and the publication Sztuka Polska. Malarstwo, and excerpts from his correspon-
dence with the composer Konstanty Górski, the poet Maria Komornicka, the playwright
Gabriela Zapolska and the poet Zenon “Miriam” Przesmycki.
Letters to and from Stanisław Witkiewicz, Stefan Żeromski and Edward Raczyński,
which are brought together in a chapter called My Friend! and which focus on Feliks
Jasieńskis “Sztuka” Club in Kraków, and the bulkiest portion of the correspondence,
headed My Man of Gold and To Our Dearest Supporter form separate parts. The latter
two show how Feliks Jasieńsks art collections developed, and discuss letters from art-
ists such as Józef Pankiewicz, Stanisław Dębicki, Leon Wyczółkowski, Jacek Malczewski,
Olga Boznańska, Ferdynand Ruszczyć, or those whose offers of artworks were rejected by
Jasieński: Tymon Niesiołowski and Wojciech Kossak. Problems of not only artistic naturę
but also artists’ opinions on and interference with the way Jasieński built his collection
recur in Jasieńskis mail, just like comments on his holding, methods of making financial
deals as well as purchase or exchange offers. For example the poet Maria Komornicka
confesses: “...Nothing new comes to my mind”; the poet Tadeusz Miciński: “I am sub-
mitting to you my latest book”; the playwright Gabriela Zapolska: “...Can I ask you for
a copy of Manggha? I am going to write a review”; the novelist Stefan Żeromski reported:
“They are demonstrating Polish art fervently here [i.e. in Zakopane] at art and literaturę
evening salons”. Ferdynand Ruszczyć wrote: “From the depth of my heart I congratulate
on your achievement”, referring to Sztuka Polska. His relationships with friends can be
traced in the words of the sculptor Olga Niewska (“I am using your ship skin... and taking
good care of it”); the painter Olga Siemaszkowa, who reported on her financial troubles;
the painter Józef Pankiewicz, who outlined an ambitious plan to set up the Polish Insti-
tute of Fine Arts in Paris, which was later to become affiliated to Krakows Academy of
Fine Arts; the painter Józef Mehoffer, who complained that “...a hundred-headed hydra is