Vienna. While visiting his cousin, Betty Albina Polturak, Bruno Schulz portrays her daughter Ina.
Even though he was not admitted to the Department of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Schulz did not return to Drogobych *. The visa issued by the local police was valid until the end of July. During that time, he visited his mother’s family. Betty Albina Polturak nee Kuhmärker* lived in the fourth district on Karolingasse. Schulz’s eighteen-year-old cousin, affectionately known as Bintschi, was linked not only by close kinship, but also by migration. They both left Galicia occupied by the Russian troops in the autumn of 1914* and, fearing Cossack persecution, escaped to the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the end of World War I, Schulz returned to Drogobych, while Betty Albina Polturak, with her husband, Emil Polturak, doctor of law*, and three children, remained in Vienna.
Schulz had the opportunity to visit a long-lost family. The relatives were considered to be extremely hospitable people, social meetings were often held in their home. The exact course of the visit is unknown, but presumably Schulz had long talks with his cousin’s husband – a lover of literature and music – and with her two sons: Felix*, 22, and Marian*, a lawyer, proxy at the Vienna company Meinl, also related to the oil industry. He was definitely drawing during that period, because during the meeting he made a pencil picture of ten-year-old Ina Polturak* in an album.
The small drawing (17 cm x 14 cm) is a composition inspired by the famous fairy tale of the Grimm brothers, The Frog King. In the centre there is a figure of a girl sitting on a kind of fancy chaise longue, holding a ball in her hand, on her right side one can see a frog leaning against a pillow, on the sides two columns open the space to the city buildings outlined in the background. The title ends in a decorative Art Nouveau frame: Der Froschkönig (The Frog King). The dedication in German below reads as follows: “In memory of the portrait sessions for an exceptionally polite model. Bruno Schulz”, indicating that there were more drawings. Thus, Schulz visited his family more often, and despite the unfulfilled intention to study at the Academy of Fine Arts, did not give up his artistic activity during his stay in Vienna. (js) (transl. ms)
