The printer from Aix-En-Provence
The rather complicated history of Poland in the 19th century meant that Paris became almost the centre of Polish cultural life. Although Warsaw regained its capital splendor after Poland regained independence in 1918, Paris remained a place to which successive generations of Polish artists made pilgrimages.
One of them was Franciszek Prochaska, born near Sanok in 1891, belonging to the same generation as Samuel Tyszkiewicz, the creator of the famous Florentine Office, active from the 1920s to 1954. Before the First World War, in 1912, Prochaska began studying at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts. In 1914, he volunteered for Józef Piłsudski's Legions to fight the Russians alongside the Austro-Hungarian army. After the end of the war, he remained in the army, serving as a professional officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1921, like Tyszkiewicz, he was sent to Paris, becoming a military attaché in France and dealing with the liquidation of institutions related to the Polish army created there by General Haller.
In Paris, Prochaska established contact with a large and lively Polish artistic colony. It included artists such as Olga Boznańska, Roman Kramsztyk, Józef Czapski and Samuel Tyszkiewicz. He also returned to his original interests in art, dealing primarily with graphics. His works at that time mostly depict the streets and alleys of Paris and show an interest in fashionable cubism. From 1923, Prochaska tried his hand at woodcuts and also began to create oil paintings.
On the margins of his artistic work, Prochaska was involved in typography. However, as he himself recalled, one of the reasons for staying in Paris after leaving military service was the rich collection of old prints in the National Library there. In 1924, he also became a member of the Polish Society of Friends of Books in Paris, encouraged by the distinguished Polish bibliophile, Stanisław Piotr Koczorowski. The same one who convinced engineer Tyszkiewicz to take up typography instead of designing airplanes. Before the outbreak of the war, Prochaska's activity as a typographer was not very impressive. His graphics were included in several books published by PTPK. Thus, in 1926 he illustrated a collection of poetry by Władysław Jan Grabski, Trzy wience , three years later, in 1929, Prochaska's works were included in Andrzej Teslar's book Devant la colonne de Mickiewicz (on which Tyszkiewicz also worked), and finally a woodcut by Prochaska depicting Jan Kochanowski decorated the French edition of the poet's works.
The war interrupted the artist's work. In 1940, Prochaska joined the Polish Army again, and after the fall of France, he went to Great Britain, where he served in the headquarters of the Polish Armed Forces in London. He returned to Paris only in 1946, returning to artistic work at the same time. This time, however, paying more attention to books. For the PTPK, reactivated in May 1947, he made a number of woodcuts, often illustrating the Society's bulletin published in the years 1946-1952. He also began to produce bookplates, reaching such exotic recipients - at least from the point of view of a Parisian emigrant - as the commander-in-chief of the communist Polish army, Marshal Michał Rola-Żymierski.
In 1950, Prochaska and his wife Maria decided to establish the Prochaska Printing House in Paris. As he recalled, he had to take up printing "to secure a living" by printing primarily greeting cards, holiday cards, etc., which were popular at the time. The exhibition organized in 1950 at the Bibliothèque Nationale was a measure of their popularity. The technical background of the Prochaska printing house was rather modest: an Albion press from 1858 and a collection of fonts from the Deberny et Peignot foundry in Paris, founded in 1923. Prochaska usually set his prints using the Montaigne typeface (16pt), designed by Bruce Rogers.
The Mill in Nadolnik , a collection of poems by Aleksander Janta, a famous author, was the first book published by Prochaska. It was published in an edition of 150 copies on Arches paper and set in the Montaigne font. The Oficyna's signet appeared for the first time then: an image of a young girl standing on deer antlers and supporting herself with her hands, decorated with three letters: MF P (Maria, Franciszek Prochaskas). In the following years, seven titles left the publishing house. By 1956, Prochaska had published four books in Paris, and three more appeared in the years 1958–1969 in Aix-en-Provence, where the Prochaska couple finally settled.
In 1950, another, second book by Prochaska was published: Village by Jean Giono, published in French, illustrated with linocuts by Edith Berger. Giono, writing a text illustrated with views of Lalley, the village where Berger lived, drew attention to the simplicity and naturalness of village life, which were in opposition to the threats posed by the modern city. In this fight, however, the village is not without a chance, its allies are the landscape, nature, animals and finally age-old traditions and customs. Today, this book is a real rarity, it is not even in the collections of the National Library in Warsaw. One of the 150 copies (no. 75) is in the National Library of the Netherlands. Like the previous book, "Village" is printed on Arches paper and set in the Montaigne font.
The next book published by Oficyna Prochaska had to wait four years. In November 1954, A. T'Serstevens' Intimité de l'ile Saint-Louis was published (again in French). This was probably not a random choice. The Île Saint-Louis in Paris in the 19th century was the centre of Polish emigration. It was here that the Hotel Lambert was located, where its political leader, Father Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, resigned. The book is provided with 27 woodcuts presenting the Île Saint-Louis, folded in Montaigne font and printed on Arches paper. Interestingly, it was not sewn, the loose pages that made it up were only provided with a case.
In April 1956, the fourth Prochaska work was published in Paris: Błyski losu , a collection of poems by Wacław Jan Godlewski. This is Prochaska's most extensive work, with 120 pages. It is printed, like other books, on Arches paper and set in Montaigne font. Prochaska's biographer, Andrzej Kłossowski, noted that this is probably the least successful editorial work of the Parisian printer, in which "he did not put his heart", only talent and knowledge.
Between 1956 and 1958, the Prochaskas moved to Aix-en-Provence. It was there, in March 1959, that the fifth book in the publishing house's output was published, bearing the Spanish title 18 coplas (an epigram, a couplet) by Jan Borzękowski. The book was printed as usual on Arches paper and set in Montaigne font. Prochaska cut a woodcut for each of the poems included in the collection. Additionally, 10 luxury copies were provided with six woodcuts printed on Japanese paper.
For the next 10 years, Prochaska did not print a single book. At that time, the artist was struggling with failing eyesight. Therefore, it was not until December 1969 that the sixth (as it turned out, the last) title of Oficyna Prochaska was published: "Wiersze kolekcja" z lat 1924-1967 by Zygmunt Lubicz Zalewski. As usual, all the graphics were made by Prochaska, only the title page features a portrait of Zalewski painted by Olga Boznańska. Work on the next book was interrupted in 1972 by the artist's death. His wife, Franciszka, had died a year earlier, in 1971. Both of them passed away almost completely forgotten. Another Polish typographer living in London, Stanisław Gliwa [1], wrote in 1978 that he tried to find out when the Prochaskas died and where they were buried, but representatives of the Parisian Polish community were unable to answer this question.
[1] David Chambers wrote in issue 8 (1988) of Matrix , a magazine devoted to typography: "From the Polish Printing House comes a booklet published in honour of Stanisław Gliwa, who died in 1986. A graduate of the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts in the 1930s, he spent the war serving in the Polish army. After the war he remained in England and began printing in 1953. Over the next thirty years he produced some forty books and booklets, often in Polish and decorated with magnificent linocuts. He was a good man and a great printer, and I am pleased to see that his work is widely known in both Poland and Great Britain."
