Jan Le Witt (1907–1991) was a Polish-born British abstract artist, graphic designer and illustrator. He had a long professional partnership with

George Him George Him (4 August 1900 – 4 April 1982) was a Polish-born British designer responsible for a number of notable posters, book illustrations and advertising campaigns for a wide range of clients. Biography Him was born Jerzy Himmelfarb in 190 ...

. As a design company, Lewitt-Him brought an innovative use of colour, abstraction and symbolism to commercial design. They established a reputation for fine poster work during World War Two and for exhibition displays, most notably with the Guinness clock for the Festival of Britain. The partnership dissolved in 1955 when Le Witt decided to concentrate upon his own, often abstract, art.

Biography

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Le Witt came from a Jewish family and after leaving school in

Częstochowa Częstochowa ( , ) is a city in southern Poland on the Warta with 214,342 inhabitants, making it the thirteenth-largest city in Poland. It is situated in the Silesian Voivodeship. However, Częstochowa is historically part of Lesser Poland, not Si ...

he spent over three years travelling in Europe and the Middle East. In 1929, he designed the first Hebrew font "Chaim" which corresponded to the Latin fonts. In 1930, he presented his work in a solo exhibition in Warsaw. In 1933, he met the graphic artist

in a Warsaw café and began a working partnership, which lasted until 1955. Their characteristic style evolved from 'blending surrealist and cubist tendencies with whimsical humour.' Him wrote of their meeting, 'when I met Lewitt ... we discovered that we had almost identical views on graphic design. We were both perfectionists. We also discovered that instead of showering each other with compliments, we could together achieve a much higher level. Although over the years we never quit arguing, the results seem to suggest that ultimately, in this we were not mistaken.' In the mid-1930s, the partners were commissioned by Przeworski publishers to design illustrations for three poems that had been written for children by the Polish poet and satiricist,

Julian Tuwim Julian Tuwim (13 September 1894 – 27 December 1953), known also under the pseudonym Oldlen as a lyricist, was a Jewish-Polish poet, born in Łódź, then part of the Russian Partition. He was educated in Łódź and in Warsaw where he studied ...

. The poems, Lokomotywa (The Locomotive), Rzepka (The Little Turnip) and Ptasie Radio (The Birds' Broadcast), were put into a single book entitled ''Lokomotywa'', (1937) which was later published in English, German and French. Le Witt emigrated to London in 1937 and was naturalised 10 years later. Work produced by the partnership in Poland had been reproduced in foreign publications, such as ''Gebrauchsgraphik'' and ''Arts et Métiers Graphiques'', and caught the attention of Philip James of the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

in London and the directors of the Lund Humphries publishing company. The two organisations sponsored the partners' move to London; the Victoria & Albert Museum prepared their immigration forms and Lund Humphries put on an exhibition of their graphic work. Upon establishing themselves in London, the Lewitt-Him partnership designed advertising posters for London Transport and

Imperial Airways Imperial Airways was an early British commercial long-range airline, operating from 1924 to 1939 and principally serving the British Empire routes to South Africa, India, Australia and the Far East, including Malaya and Hong Kong. Passengers ...

. During World War II, the pair created posters for, amongst others, the Ministry of Information, the

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Established in England in the 17th century, the GPO was a state monopoly covering the dispatch of items from a specific ...

and the

Ministry of Food Ministry may refer to: Government * Ministry (collective executive), the complete body of government ministers under the leadership of a prime minister * Ministry (government department), a department of a government Religion * Christian mi ...

. They also designed murals for war factory canteens and posters and books for the Polish government in exile and for the Dutch government in exile. They also designed the Guinness Festival clock for the

Festival of Britain The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Labour Party cabinet member Herbert Morrison was the prime mover; in 1947 he started with the ...

, held in Battersea Park. Le Witt gained British citizenship in 1947. He was also a fire warden for Kensington and Chelsea; the London borough in which he lived. While living in London Le Witt became good friends with a circle of artists including

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental Bronze sculpture, bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore ...

Piero Fornasetti Piero Fornasetti (10 November 1913 – 15 October 1988) was an Italian artist and designer. Born in Milan into a middle-class family, Fornasetti's creative pursuits encompassed design, decoration, painting, curating, and printing. His oeuvre, ...

and David Zwemmer, and met and worked with

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

on a number of occasions. He also formed a strong friendship with Sir

Herbert Read Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read wa ...

, who wrote the foreword to his monograph and was one of the first critics to recognise his worth as a painter of abstracts based on naturalistic forms. Le Witt married Alina Prusicka in 1939 in London after she also fled Poland before the Second World War. She was the author of many of the children's books that he illustrated. They had one son, Michael Le Witt in 1945. In 1955 Lewitt-Him dissolved as Le Witt wanted to focus on his artistic work as a painter and individual artist. Among many projects, he designed sets and costumes for ballets in

Sadler's Wells Sadler's Wells Theatre is a London performing arts venue, located in Rosebery Avenue, Islington. The present-day theatre is the sixth on the site. Sadler's Wells grew out of a late 17th-century pleasure garden and was opened as a theatre buil ...

(1942), most notably the decor and costumes for the Cranko Ballet, Morceaux Enfantin. He also worked in other media such as glass sculpture in

Murano Murano is a series of islands linked by bridges in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It lies about north of Venice and measures about across with a population of just over 5,000 (2004 figures). It is famous for its glass making. It was o ...

and tapestries for Tabard at Aubusson. He had individual and group exhibitions all over Europe and the USA. In Britain he exhibited at the

Grosvenor Gallery The Grosvenor Gallery was an art gallery in London founded in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife Blanche. Its first directors were J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé. The gallery proved crucial to the Aesthetic Movement because it provid ...

, the Zwemmer Gallery (1947 and 1953) and

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...

(1950 and 1952), the

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities University museum, museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard ...

in Cambridge (1989). Elsewhere, he exhibited at the Musee Grimaldi in Antibes, the Piazza San Marco in Venice and at

MOMA The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

in New York.

Book illustrations

*Julian Tuwim, 'Lokomotywa' (with George Him, 1934) *Jan Lewitt and George Him, 'The Football's Revolt' (1939) *Diana Ross, 'The Little Red Engine Gets a Name' (with George Him, 1942) *Alina Le Witt, 'Blue Peter' (1943) *Alina Le Witt, 'Five Silly Cats' (with George Him, 1945) *Jan Le Witt, 'The Vegetabull' (1956)

Literature and sources

*Read, Herbert Edward, Jean Cassou and John Smith: Jan Le Witt, Routledge & Kegan Paul: New York, 1971 *Documenta III. International Exhibition; Catalog: Volume 1: Painting and sculpture; Volume 2: Hand drawings; Industrial design, graphics; Kassel/Cologne, 1964 *Mackay, Bertha E .: Illustrators of Children's Books 1744–1945, Boston 1947, reprint 1961 *Warda, Michał in Very Graphic – Polish Designers of the 20th Century, edited by Jacek Mrowczyk, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, 2015, pp. 104–111. *Gryglewicz, T., Groteska w sztuce polskiej XX wieku, Kraków, 1984, pp. 137–138. *Hölscher, E., ‘Lewitt-Him, Warschau’, International Advertising Art, 1936, No. 7. *Ostrowski, H. L., ‘Reklama firm chemiczno-farmaceutycznych’, Reklama 1931, No. 6 *Gasser, Manuel, Graphis, No.14, 1946, p. 203. *Elvin, René, in Art and Industry, October 1956, p. 120. *‘Lewitt-Him’ in Graphis No. 14, 18, 22, 31, 37, 42, 48. *Gebrauchs Grafik, July 1936 and No. 5, 1953. *Tomrley, C.G., ‘Lewitt-Him’ in Graphis No. 48, 1953, pp. 268–275. *Hollis, R., Graphic Design: A Concise History, London, 2001, pp. 176–177.

References

External links

Works by Lewitt-Him in the Imperial War Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Le Witt, Jan 1907 births 1991 deaths Polish abstract artists Polish graphic designers Polish surrealist artists Polish muralists Polish cubist artists Polish poster artists People from Częstochowa 20th-century Polish Jews Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom 20th-century Polish illustrators Polish children's book illustrators