Marian Sigmund – projektant wnętrz i mebli. Życie i krótka charakterystyka twórczości

Abstract

MARIAN SIGMUND – INTERIOR AND FURNITURE DESIGNER. A BRIEF CHARACTERIZATION OF HIS LIFE AND WORK

Marian Sigmund (1902–1993) lived to a ripe old age and the complicated history of the 20th century had a powerful impact on his life and work. On the one hand, he was an observer of history, on the other hand he encountered historically significant phenomena which transformed the future of Polish design. He was, indeed, an artist who actively shaped that history. Sigmund was born in Błudniki in Podolia. He attended a common school and a grammar school (gymnasium) in Lviv. In 1919 he fought in the Polish-Soviet war, serving in the 11th regiment of field artillery. In 1921 Sigmund began his studies at the Faculty of Architecture of the Lviv Polytechnic. He then moved to the Faculty of Interior Design at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts (which was later renamed Academy of Fine Arts). From that moment, his life became permanently connected with Poland’s capital. He worked for the ŁAD Artists’ Cooperative and participated in the Cooperative’s group exhibitions and commissions, e.g. creating designs for ministerial interiors. Sigmund made his debut at the Polish General Exhibition in Poznań in 1929. An important landmark in his career was the show titled Sztuka wnętrza [Art of the Interior] (1935/1936) held in the exhibition rooms of the Institute of Art Propaganda in Warsaw which he, as the director of ŁAD, also curated. Sigmund also worked as a teacher at secondary vocational schools. The outbreak of World War II found him at a family estate in Wojniłów where he was vacationing with his relatives. He failed to reach the 11th regiment field artillery to which he had been assigned and, therefore, had to remain in hiding. He eventually reached Warsaw in 1943 and spend the time of German occupation there. He was a soldier in the Home Army (Armia Krajowa). He worked for the Bureau of Information and Propaganda designing posters and logos. He was the creator of the postal stamp used by the Field Mail service during the Warsaw Uprising. Following the capitulation of the uprising on 4 October 1944 he was transported to a transition camp in Lamsdorf, and then to Murnau VII A where he became involved in creating cultural life for the camp inmates. After the war he moved to Kraków and worked as a professor at the Faculty of Interior Design at the Academy of Fine Arts. During the construction of Nowa Huta Sigmund was commissioned to design the interiors for the Miastoprojekt Kraków company (he held the position of chief designer until 1956). It was him who designed such wellknown interiors as the Administrative Buildings Z and S of Lenin Steelworks and Nowa Huta’s cinemas: Świt and Światowid. At the same time, the artist was experiencing challenges in his personal life, as his first wife Maja Nowaczyńska (1907–1952), passed away in 1952. In 1955 he married his second wife, Halina Jastrzębowska (1907–2003). As a designer he participated in numerous projects, commissions and exhibitions. Among his many professional collaborations was that with Bentwood Furniture Company in Jasienica. In the 1960s he designed the interiors of the hospital and research department of the Kraków Medical Academy in Prokocim. He also designed the office interiors at Wawel Royal Castle, as well as the stately rooms of the Office of the Council of Ministers at Wawel Hill (suites, guest rooms, dining rooms, drawing room, foyer, cloakroom and the lobby). Apart from his work as an interior designer, he also created paintings, drawings, costume designs, stage scenery and, occasionally, film set designs. Marian Sigmund died on 7 November 1993 in Kraków and was buried at the Rakowicki Cemetery. In terms of formal or stylistic features, his designs reveal influences of the simplified Biedermeier style which was typical of the interwar period, and of the Polish variant of art déco. After the war he turned to socialist realism, and then experimented with various materials which was a trademark in the field of design in the mid-1950s. His oeuvre as a whole is coherent and logical. Sigmund was a student of Józef Czajkowski which is reflected in his works oscillating between Biedermeier and art déco, as in the case of Wojciech Jastrzębowski, or in his socialist realist designs which combine these two experiences. Sigmund’s most creative and independent designs were produced in the late 1950s, which was overall a very fruitful period for designers. Especially unique is the chair type A587. On the one hand, it combines the logic and ideas of the pre-war ŁAD Cooperative, while on the other hand it is a modern, independent and absolutely unique object in itself. This particular design corresponds with similar creations from that period produced by such designers as Maria Chometowska, Czesław Knothe, Jan Kurzątkowski, Władysław Wincze, and Roman Modzelewski.