We have received an extraordinary donation from the Szukalski Archives with immense gratitude. Thanks to Lena Zwalve and Glenn Bray, custodians of Stanisław Szukalski’s legacy, our museum has acquired a priceless collection of recordings—master tapes documenting the artist’s final years.
The archive comprises nearly 300 hours of material recorded on more than 70 tapes. The recordings were made in Szukalski’s apartment in Burbank and captured on Betamax and VHS cameras by his longtime friend and heir, Glenn Bray.
Although the tapes also contain the artist’s commentary on his own work, reflections on art, and advice for future artists—naturally delivered in the spirit of the Creative Workshop (Twórcownia)—a significant portion of the material is devoted to Zermatism, Szukalski’s original theory, which he developed over several decades. In these recordings, he explains in detail his ideas concerning the origins of language, the history of humanity and culture, as well as the contents of the 42 volumes dedicated to this subject, which he personally wrote and illustrated with more than 14,000 drawings.
For researchers and admirers of Szukalski’s work, this archive is a source of exceptional value. The recordings provide a unique opportunity not only to hear Stach’s commentary on his own creations, but also to gain deeper insight into the ideas to which he devoted a significant part of his life.
Until now, we have presented only a small selection of this material. Thanks to this generous donation, we have gained access to a much larger archive, which will be gradually catalogued, studied, and made available to the public.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Lena Zwalve and Glenn Bray for their trust and for their many years of dedicated stewardship of Stanisław Szukalski’s legacy.
