August 1926

The beginnings of her relationship with Schulz and the circumstances of the portrait’s creation were reported to Jerzy Ficowski by Halina Drohocka¹ herself in a letter written shortly after the war: “I met him in 1926, while on vacation in Zakopane. We stayed at the Piast guest house, which I believe does not exist anymore. [...] A kind of familiarity developed between us quite quickly, which included a few other people. That is why it is difficult for me to write about Schulz objectively and about him alone, because in my memory he is inseparably connected with those people. At that time, he drafted portraits of several people from the guest house, including myself. I remember that he drew mine longer than anyone else’s (he usually caught the resemblance in no time). He was angry that he could not capture my expression, he finally gave up and left it as it was, but was dissatisfied”². Nevertheless, Schulz added a dedication to the drawing: “To Miss Halinka / Bruno Schulz / Zakopane, August 1926”, and offered it to Drohocka, who kept it together with another drawing, probably given to her at the same time. In a letter to Ficowski from May 31, 1948, Drohocka enumerated the works of Schulz she possessed (or had lost): “I have two works by Schulz. One is a charcoal portrait of mine, drawn in 1926, the second is a small sepia picture from 1924, also with a dedication. After removing the passe-partout, it turned out that there was a self-portrait on the back (undated), which I did not know about for a long time. I had two of his letters, but, unfortunately, they were lost during the war”³. This “small sepia picture” given to her by Schulz, with a self-portrait hidden on the back (and thus as if invalidated), depicts three people sitting at the table. The scene is kept in the aura of Goya’s sketches. In 1974, Drohocka donated both drawings to the National Museum in Warsaw. (sr) (transl. mw)