RCM Galerie is pleased to announce an exhibition dedicated to Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, the visionary husband-and-wife duo who transformed the landscape of European avant-garde art and cinema. Opening 12 March 2026, this presentation brings together rarely seen drawings, paintings, photographs, and experimental films from the Themerson Estate London.
The exhibition arrives amid a significant institutional reassessment of the Themersons’ legacy. Recent years have seen major presentations of their work at Tate Gallery, London (2024), Ben Uri Gallery, London (2025), and Camden Arts Centre (2016), affirming their central place in the history of European modernism.
Franciszka Themerson (1907–1988) was born in Warsaw, the daughter of painter Jakub Weinles and pianist Łucja Kaufman. She studied painting at the Warsaw Academy of Art, graduating with honours in 1931. Stefan Themerson (1910–1988) was born in Płock. After studying physics and architecture, he abandoned his formal education for writing and experimentation with photography, photograms, and collage. They met in 1929, married in 1931, and embarked on a lifelong collaboration that would span film, photography, painting, illustration, literature, and publishing.
The Themersons became pioneers of the Polish cinematic avant-garde, co-founding the Polish Film-makers’ Co-operative in 1935 and editing its journal f.a. (art film). Visiting Paris and London in 1936–37, they met Moholy-Nagy, John Grierson, and Len Lye, forging connections with the international experimental film community. In 1938 they moved to Paris, wanting to be at the heart of the art world. The outbreak of war separated them—Franciszka escaped to London with the Polish government-in-exile in 1940; Stefan served as a soldier in France before reuniting with her in London in 1942.
The exhibition will feature screenings of their surviving experimental films, including Europa (1931–32), a kinetic condemnation of creeping fascism based on Anatol Stern’s futurist poem, and The Eye and the Ear (1944–45), an abstract masterwork visualising the music of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski. These films represent major achievements in experimental cinema, combining photograms, photomontage, and innovative visual techniques that influenced generations of filmmakers.
In 1948, the Themersons founded the Gaberbocchus Press in London, which over three decades published more than sixty titles celebrated for their original design. The press introduced English-speaking readers to major European writers, publishing the first English translations of Alfred Jarry, Raymond Queneau, and Heinrich Heine, alongside works by Guillaume Apollinaire, Kurt Schwitters, Stevie Smith, and Bertrand Russell. Franciszka served as art director, designing and illustrating many titles. Her work for the press extended to theatre: in 1964, she created the award-winning costumes and puppets for a production of Jarry’s Ubu Roi at the Marionetteatern in Stockholm.
The exhibition presents a rich selection of Franciszka Themerson’s distinctive pen and ink drawings from the 1950s, including works from her celebrated architectural series, alongside vibrant oil pastel and acrylic compositions from the 1970s and 1980s. Stefan Themerson’s photographic works from the 1930s demonstrate the couple’s mastery of darkroom experimentation and their pioneering use of photograms.