Before Witkacy Szorc on end – unknown memories from Zakopane

Abstract

The article presents a fragment of Pamiętnik o najbliższej rodzinie, o sobie i o szkole (Diary about close family, about myself and about school) (issue 2, from 1928–1939) by Jan Szorc, which is stored in the manuscript archives of the National Library. The Diary was finished in 1984 and sold in the same year to the National Library by the author; it was never published. Especially interesting fragments are the ones describing Sztorc’s stay in Zakopane, where he went for lung treatment (from 15 April 1930). It was the “most varied” time in Jan Szorc’s life, when he broke out of provincial Lublin “with frowsty atmosphere”. On pages 12 and 13 of the Diary one can find a short account of Jan Szorc’s meetings with Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz in Zakopane. The factor which determined the course of the meetings – if we are to believe the author – was ear for music. Szorc’s melodic whistling placated Witkacy, who treated painting portraits of middle-class women for money as a scourge which had little to do with art. The women painted in Witkacy’s Firm belonged to the inmates who lived on the same floor of Walówka Villa. One of the models was probably Lidia Ornatowska (from Boruchowscy family of Doliwa coat of arms), older than Szorc. There are no surviving letters from Witkacy to his wife Jadwiga from winter and spring 1930, and other sources dedicated to Witkacy do not contain any mentions of Ornatowska and Szorc, the later history of “both ladies” portraits is also unknown.