Event
Krystyna Bednarczyk and Her Poets and Painters' Press
Research Centre on the Legacy of Polish Migration (ReCeLPM) of the Union of Polish Writers Abroad (ZPPnO), in cooperation with the University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies (UCL SSEES) and the Polish University Abroad (PUNO), is pleased to invite you to an international symposium on the life and work of Krystyna Bednarczyk.
The aim of the Symposium is to honour Krystyna Bednarczyk (1923-2011) and her pioneering and still relatively unknown work in the field of artistic editing. In 1949, together with her husband Czesław, she founded the independent publishing and printing company 'Poets and Painters Press' in London, where the couple had lived since 1946. The Bednarczyks gained their publishing experience working with the famous Polish typographer, Stanislaw Gliwa, and Peter Russell, Ezra Pound's publisher in Tunbridge Wells. They invited artists from all over the world to collaborate with them, including Feliks Topolski, who became famous as the illustrator of George Bernard Shaw's works. Together they published Topolski's Chronicle, a highly regarded chronicle of world events. Thanks to the Bednarczyks, Czeslaw Milosz, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980, also appeared on the British publishing scene.
As editors of the literary quarterly 'Oficyna Poetów' from 1966 to 1980, they published the poems of nearly 80 Polish emigree poets and 30 poets from Communist Poland. The quarterly also featured the work of some 50 artists. From 2005 to 2011, Krystyna Bednarczyk was the charwomen of ZPPnO and the editor of “Pamiętnik Literacki”/”Literary Dairy”.
This project dedicated, to the life and work of Krystyna Bednarczyk, begins with a Symposium on the centenary of her birth. It will take place in a hybrid format (in London at the Polish Social and Cultural Association - POSK and on the Zoom platform) on 18-19 November 2023 and will also include artistic workshops.
KOMITET NAUKOWY / ACADEMIC COMMITTEE
Regina Wasiak-Taylor (ZPPnO), prof. Ewa Lewandowska Tarasiuk (PUNO, Akademia Pedagogiki Specjalnej w Warszawie APS), dr Katarzyna Zechenter (UCL SSEES, ReCeLPM), dr Justyna Gorzkowicz (ReCeLPM, PUNO)
KOMITET ORGANIZACYJNY / ORGANISING COMMITTE
Wojciech Klas (PUNO, ZPPnO) – sekretarz / secretary, Urszula Lenik (PUNO), Jarosław Solecki (PUNO, Blue Point Art – BPA), Małgorzata Witkowska (PUNO)
