Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) – An Artist’s Life in Galicia

Drohobych, the hometown of the visual artist and writer Bruno Schulz, originally belonged to the Kingdom of Poland and later to Austria-Hungary. Returning to Polish rule in 1919, it came under Soviet influence in 1939 and was occupied by the German Wehrmacht in 1941. This marked the beginning of the destruction not only of the Jewish population, but also of the multi-ethnic culture of a country in which various ethnic groups – primarily Poles and Ukrainians, but also Germans, Armenians and Russians – had lived together for many centuries. Today, Drohobych is part of Ukraine.

Bruno Schulz grew up in a Polish-speaking Jewish family. On the ground floor of his parents’ house was his father’s textile shop, the setting for a series of short stories published in 1933 under the title *The Cinnamon Shops*. Reading these, we enter a fantastical, often surreal world that also appears in the artist’s drawings and prints, influenced by Goya and Kubin. In 1936, his second collection of stories, “Das Sanatorium zur Sanduhr”, was published. Themes and motifs in Schulz’s prose, such as his exploration of the figure of the father, are reminiscent of Kafka. Kafka’s novel fragment “The Trial” was also published in Polish translation in 1936. Bruno Schulz was named as the translator on the title page. In fact, Schulz advised his then fiancée, Józefina Szelińska, on this work.

Schulz was murdered in the street by a German SS officer on 19 November 1942, shortly before his planned escape from the Drohobych ghetto. The majority of his visual art has been lost. Only a single one of his oil paintings has survived.

On saturday, may 2nd at 12:30 Rainer Beuthel will present at the Künstlerhaus the artist’s life and work, displays a selection of prints and drawings, and reads excerpts from the writer’s stories.