„My corpse sits in this basket” – the secrets if Miss C.K.’s gift

Abstract

The archives of Górnośląskie Museum in Bytom contain the correspondence between Ignacy Witkiewicz and Tadeusz Dobrowolski, the head of Śląskie Museum in Katowice. It concerns two matters: the museum’s purchase of Witkacy’s Autoportret and his donation of “Miss C.K.’s gift”. In June 1938, during his stay with Maria and Ignacy Grabski in Katowice, he painted Autoportret with smoking factories in the background, which he sold for 200 zł to Śląskie Museum. The information about it reached the Tax Chamber in Zakopane, which decided to seize the fee as a credit towards due taxes amounting to 1200 zł. Witkacy was trying to stop it by revoking the decision to sell the painting, which however resulted in a tax inspector’s visit at “Witkiewiczówka” with the intention of seizing all Witakcy’s paintings. After the payment of half of the amount due, made by cousin Dziudzia and a friend Tadeusz Langier, and seizing the fee for Autoportret, the Tax Chamber remitted the remaining part of the debt.

            In March 1938 Czesława Oknińska-Korzeniowska broke her 9-year relationship with Witkacy. She found out that he was having an affair with a 17-year-old manicurist, lover of a barber from Zakopane. She sent back to him all the gifts she had received, his books with dedications torn out, as well as a package of paintings. He did not manage to convince her to reconcile and get back to him. Attempts of mediation by friends (among others, Hans Cornelius), were also unsuccessful. Witkacy, believing the breakup to be definite, donated the collection of paintings sent back to him to Śląskie Museum as “Miss C.K.’s gift’. It contained, among others, three of his self-portraits, astronomical compositions, an oil painting entitled    Wnętrze lasu (which he had painted at the age of seven), as well as works by Rafał Malczewski, Tadeusz Langier, Antoni Waśkowski and Brunon Schulz. During the war most of them were destroyed or went missing. Among the ones that survived, there was  Autoportret, which was in Górnośląskie Museum after the war, and in 1988 was donated to Śląskie Museum.

            The breakup with Czesia, which led Witkacy to severe depression and suicidal thoughts, lasted for almost five months. In August 1938 she agreed to return to him. Witkacy, however, never fully recovered mentally, and suicidal thoughts were to accompany him forever – until 18 September 1939.