Jozef Szajna died

Jozef Szajna, an outstanding stage designer, screenwriter, theatre theoretician, painter and graphic artist, died. He was 86. Prof. Jozef Szajna was born in 1922 in Rzeszow. He was a prisoner of KL Auschwitz and Buchenwald, these events had a huge impact on his work.

Szajna graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, where in 1952 he received a degree in graphic, and year later in stage designing. For nine years he had been working at the university. In 1972 he became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where he headed the study of, inter alia, stage design. From 1955 till 1963, he was a director and artistic manager at the Folk’s Theatre in Nowa Huta. He cooperated with Old Theatre in Krakow, Silesian Theatre in Katowice, Modern Theatre in Wroclaw, and Polish Theatre in Warsaw. In 1971 he created an authorship Gallery-Theatre in the Centre of Art Studio in Warsaw.
Szajna, inter alia, represented Poland at the Venice Biennale (1970 and 1990) and the Sao Paulo Biennale (1979 and 1989). However, he achieved his world success mainly as a theatrical creator.