Żarnower, Teresa, Mieczysław Szczuka, et al.

[POLISH AVANT-GARDE – CONSTRUCTIVISM] Blok. Revue d'art no. 5.

Warsaw: M. Szczuka (editor), Druk. "Krajowa", 1924. Octavo (23.7 × 15.8 cm). Original staple-stitched pictorial wrappers; 15, [1] pp. including wrappers. With thirteen illustrations (including photographs of works and original Constructivist compositions). About very good; very light dust-soiling to wrappers; rust to staples. Item #54674

Very rare issue of the groundbreaking Polish Constructivist journal, with wrappers illustrated by a work by Teresa Żarnower (1895–1950), co-founder of the Blok group with Mieczysław Szczuka and co-editor of the eponymous journal, which appeared in 1924–26. A painter, graphic artist, set designer, and sculptor, Żarnower was among the most prominent representatives of Polish Constructivism. With links to the Yiddish avant-garde, Żarnower produced pioneering work in functional typography and photomontage. Szczuka (1898–1927) was a painter and graphic designer oriented towards Soviet artistic tendencies; initially following Malevich's Suprematism, he later was influenced by Vladimir Tatlin and tended towards a utilitarianism in the arts. The present journal was a key forum of international Constructivism and the most important publication of the Polish avant-garde as such. Almost all of its contributors were visual artists above all, and each issue was designed as a complex visual work of art, in a range of formats and sizes. Aside from Żarnower and Szczuka, the group also included at various times Władysław Strzemiński, Katarzyna Kobro, Henryk Berlewi, and Edmund Miller.

The present issue is particularly central to the development of Polish Constructivism. It reproduces several full-page Constructivist compositions by Szczuka and Żarnower, and also introduces a set of principles for the new typography. In complete sequence, the issue contains Constructivist works by Szczuka ("Kemal's Constructive Program") and Żarnower; Marinetti's article on Italian Futurism (translated by Wanda Melcer-Rutkowska); two works by Jan Golus and Walter Münz ("Decoration for Prometheus"); a short article on three examples of Constructivist aesthetics, illustrated with works by Strzemiński, Żarnower, and Szczuka; an editorial propagating the uses of New Typography, with applied typographic examples; reproductions of two drawings by Günter Hirschel-Protsch and works by Władysław Strzemiński, a "construction" by Theo van Doesburg next to an "anti-construction" by Cornelis van Eesteren. Also printed are van Doesburg's article on the renewal of architecture and an unsigned text on "The drama of movement."

The journal's subtitles varied, including "Czasopismo awangardy artystycznej" (Journal of the artistic avant-garde). Altogether, eleven issues were published in eight fascicles.

See Heller, Avant-Garde Magazine Design of the Twentieth Century, this issue pictured on p. 108. Rypson 36 (this issue not pictured). Passuth, Treffpunkte der Avantgarden, pp. 192–96 (Szczuka's "Kemal Pasha" photo-montage is reproduced on p. 193).

No copies of this issue have appeared in Polish auctions in the last three decades. As of October 2024, KVK, OCLC locate only the copies at the Getty and Yale in North America (CCA and MoMA hold two other issues of the journal).