Maja Berezowska was one of Poland’s most important creators of erotic art. She’s best remembered for her book and press illustrations, including drawings for Boccaccio’s ‘The Decameron’, but she also created numerous standalone pieces. In a characteristic style that never crossed the line of good taste, she depicted sexually charged brush drawings and paintings. Her repertoire also included non-erotic works such as portraits and depictions of flowers.
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Edmund Berezowski, Maja Berezowska & Kazimierz Grus, between the years 1918-1924, photo: Polona.pl
Maja Berezowska’s real name was Maria, but from her childhood she was called Maja and the name stuck with her. The date of her birth is unclear, as she herself said she was born in different years on various occasions. She came into this world in the town of Baranowicze (in today’s Belarus), most probably in 1892. She spent her earliest years in Siberia where her father Edmund, a railway engineer, was building the Trans-Siberian Railway. Her mother was Janina née Przecławska; she also had an older sister named Eleonora.
In 1908, Berezowska, who exhibited artistic inclinations from a very early age, began to attend an arts high school in St. Petersburg, where her family had relocated. By 1911 she and her sister were living in Kraków. In that city Berezowska furthered her artistic education at Maria Niedzielska’s School of Fine Arts for Women, whose tutors included such acclaimed Polish painters as Jacek Malczewski and Leon Wyczółkowski. After spending two years at this institution she moved to Munich where she studied at the local Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
Berezowska managed to safely pass World War I with her family in and around Kyiv. After the war, she came to Warsaw where she fell in love with the talented caricaturist Kazimierz Grus. He introduced her to the world of press illustration, and in 1918 Berezowska debuted as a draughtswoman for the periodical Szczutek. The pair was married in 1920 and led a bohemian lifestyle – they had a broad social circle of friends and frequented coffeehouses as well as other establishments. Krystyna Dąbrowska, niece of the acclaimed composer Karol Szymanowski, once described Berezowska with the following words:
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I think that always, as far back as I can remember, she was the same. Very kind to people, full of humour and shocking to the more chaste ladies.
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From the 2018 book ‘Berezowska. Nagość dla Wszystkich’ by Małgorzata Czyńska, trans. MK
Unfortunately, because of Grus’ aggressive behaviour, linked to alcoholism, the couple divorced in 1932.
Before Berezowska established herself as an erotic art creator she created propaganda caricatures. In the early 1920s, when a plebiscite was organised to determine whether Upper Silesia would belong to Poland or Germany, she created anti-German drawings for the press (in the end the region was divided between the two countries). She’s also known to have created caricatures of an anti-Semitic nature. However, in later years Berezowska said that she ‘always hated racism and chauvinism’. Perhaps her propaganda caricatures were just a means of making a living and didn’t express her true opinions.
Between the years 1924 and 1932, she was a member of the artistic group Rytm, which gravitated toward figurative art and included, for example, the acclaimed painter Zofia Stryjeńska. Around 1926, Berezowska began work for the satirical weekly Cyrulik Warszawski. Every issue of the periodical featured an erotic illustration by her, often containing nudity, on the last page. These illustrations were highly popular with readers and gave Berezowska recognition as a creator of sexually charged works.
Berezowska enjoyed a big success in the Interwar period when she illustrated a 1930 edition of Boccaccio’s The Decameron, translated into Polish by Edward Boyé – the book received a number of awards for its aesthetic qualities. For this publication she prepared twenty full-page illustrations showing mainly love scenes:
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Following Botticelli, who by the way had also made images inspired by ‘The Decameron’, she elongates and slenderises the figures, similarly to Breughel she makes her characters humorous and gives them realistically monstrous faces. […] Berezowska stylises her drawings as folk woodcuts, providing strong contrasts between black and white. The effects of this are very modern and correspond with Art Deco art.
In this era Berezowska became subject to accusations, which would recur throughout her life, that she was a propagator of debauchery and licentiousness and that her works were indecent.
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‘Kiss’ by Maja Berezowska, photo: Agra Art
From 1932 to 1937 Berezowska lived in Paris where she managed to become an illustrator for periodicals such as Vogue, Le Figaro and La Vie Parisienne. In that city she became fascinated with the styles of Picasso and Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, a Japanese artist living in the capital of France who merged aesthetics from his homeland with European themes. Thanks to these influences Berezewska’s characteristic style begins to emerge: she employs fluent, light lines to create dashing scenes. She only needs a few strokes of the brush to conjure a magnificent nude. She never crosses the line of good taste. Brush drawing is her technique of choice.
In Paris, Berezowska also becomes involved in a big scandal linked to her caricatures of Hitler. She agreed to draw satirical depictions of the German leader for an unfavourable article about him published in 1934 by the periodical Ici Paris. The text discussed, amongst other things, Hitler’s contacts with prostitutes:
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Maja thought the article […] was hilarious and drew 11 caricatures for it. There’s no doubt as to who is shown in them. The leader is presented in bold love scenes. With a lewd smile he fondles the naked breasts of a voluptuous beauty sitting on his lap, or has intercourse on the bare ground in a park.
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From ‘Berezowska: Nagość dla Wszystkich’, trans. MK
After an intervention from the German embassy Berezowska was charged with insulting a head of state and was put on trial. Interestingly, former (and future) French prime minister Albert Sarraut became her lawyer. Eventually, Berezowska was given a symbolic fine of one Franc. The whole affair complicated Berezowska’s life in France, so she decided to return to Warsaw in 1937.
Whilst in Paris she had become an illustrator for the Polish periodical Szpilki and she continued this involvement after her return. Like Cyrulik Warszawski, this magazine would typically feature an erotic drawing by Berezowska on the last page. For Szpilki, Berezowska authored a number of illustrations for old-Polish trifles (minor poems with sharp or ironic points), showing a great knowledge of historical costumes and realities.
At this time she also created paintings – watercolour portraits and depictions of flowers featuring bright, joyful colours. Berezowska was very fond of flowers as evidenced by a quote taken from one of her radio interviews:
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The most beautiful things in this world are flowers, animals and beautiful human bodies.
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From ‘Berezowska: Nagość dla Wszystkich’, trans. MK
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Maja Berezowska in the mountians, 1930, photo: Polona.pl
After Germany invaded Poland at the start of World War II, Berezowska had to go into hiding as the Gestapo was after her for the caricatures of Hitler she had drawn in Paris. She left Warsaw and went to Moniaki, a countryside estate in the region of Lubelszczyzna, where she resided with her acquaintances: Hanna Dąbrowska and Zofia Olszowska. Eventually though, she began to miss her Warsaw-based sister and friends and returned to the capital. There she was tracked down and arrested by the Nazis in January 1942. A couple of months later she was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. More than 130,000 women were imprisoned there during the war and 92,000 of them perished.
At the camp, Berezowska befriended actress Jadwiga Kopijowska who helped her survive the unspeakable hardships of that place. The two made it out of Ravensbrück alive and became lifelong friends. During her camp imprisonment Berezowska created beautified portraits of her fellow inmates who were worn out by the terrible conditions. She later commented on this with the following words:
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I knew they were going to send them [the portraits – ed.] to their families, and I wanted to cheer up those families, and I also wanted the portrayed women to be satisfied, at least with their own looks. That’s something that really helps a woman survive.
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From ‘Berezowska: Nagość dla Wszystkich’, trans. MK
At Ravensbrück, Berezowska was subject to a ghastly medical experiment – a doctor injected her with an unknown substance that ruined her health. She managed to heal, but for the remainder of her life would suffer from medical problems like weakness of the limbs or inflammation. In the spring of 1945, in view of Nazi Germany’s upcoming capitulation, Ravensbrück was being shut down and Berezowska, after three years at the camp, was taken by the Red Cross to Sweden to recuperate.
In Sweden, Berezowska received accommodation in a hotel in the town of Jönköping and began to develop an artistic presence. She created oil and watercolour paintings including portraits and depictions of flowers. In December 1945 her works were shown at an exhibition in Stockholm, attended by members of Sweden’s royal family: Prince Eugen Napoleon Nicolaus and Prince Oscar Fredrik Wilhelm Olaf Gustaf Adolf. Even though things were starting to look good for Berezowska in Sweden, she decided to come back to Poland in 1946, to be close to her sister and friends.
Back in Warsaw she revived her career as an illustrator for the press. However, Poland was now under the communist regime and socialist realism was becoming the country’s official aesthetic doctrine. Eroticism and nudity, with which Berezowska was strongly associated, were frowned upon by the communist censorship and so the artist found herself in a somewhat difficult position. She tried to adapt by drawing builders and factory workers but even such works of her were criticised, for example, when she depicted a breastfeeding labourer. Eventually, at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s she had trouble finding employment as a draughtswoman.
Therefore at this time Berezowska collaborated with theatres (she had already designed theatre costumes before the war). She designed stage scenery and costumes, mainly for children’s plays. Berezowska was also active in advertising, creating nameplates and… matchboxes. She would continue working in these fields in later years. For example, in the 1960s she created an absolutely charming matchbox design in her characteristic, sensual style:
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The matchbox featuring Berezowska’s drawing is a small work of art. A fashionable pair is sitting at a coffeehouse table. He’s handsome, she’s very pretty, a cinematic beauty with long eyelashes covering her eyes, and a cigarette in her temptingly shaped lips. The man’s lighting her cigarette. She turns her head to him slightly. Her very low-cut dress reveals her bust. Elegance and sex appeal.
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From ‘Berezowska: Nagość dla Wszystkich’, trans. MK
After Stalin’s death in 1953 a certain liberalisation occurred in the Eastern Bloc, and it was easier for Berezowska to find employment as an illustrator. That year Różne Przypadki Świata Tego (Various Occurrences of This World), a selection of satirical works by the eminent Polish Renaissance writer Mikołaj Rej was published. The book, which included 55 illustrations by Berezowska, was very popular with readers.
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Drawing by Maja Berezowska, hanging in her apartment, 1979, photo: Jerzy Kośnik / Forum
Berezowska had a big success when she illustrated a 1954 volume of trifles by the acclaimed poet Jan Sztaudynger, titled Piórka (Feathers). The book sold tens of thousands of copies and Berezowska would go on to illustrate further volumes by Sztaudynger. Here’s how her illustrations for Feathers are described in Jolanta Soboń’s paper Maja Berezowska Jako Ilustrator Książki (Maja Berezowska as a Book Illustrator), published in 2002 by the scholarly journal Acta Universitatis Lodziensis: Folia Librorum:
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The size of the drawings corresponds with the mostly two-verse trifles; the illustrations are small and they precede or follow the poems. Thanks to their clear lines and meticulously presented details, the drawings seem to be decorative ‘knickknacks’ whose form resonates with the brilliant sharpness characteristic of Sztaudynger’s humour. The main elements in these depictions are the various love affairs of men and women, a cupid bearing a bow and arrows – always present in Berezowska’s art – and bouquets of flowers.
In 1963 Berezowska published an authorial album of her works titled Piórkiem Przez Stulecia (Brush Drawing Through the Centuries). It contained 83 illustrations for licentious verse writings by acclaimed Polish and foreign poets, such as Jan Kochanowski and Wacław Potocki. This book also sold very well. Her drawings and caricatures were published by many periodicals including Przekrój, Nowa Kultura and Szpilki, much to the appreciation of readers. She also created numerous standalone pieces such as brush drawings and watercolours. Here’s how sexologist Andrzej Depko explains the appeal of Berezowska’s erotic art:
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The power of Berezowska’s erotic drawings lies in that they were created […] by a woman and her level of sensibility. She wanted to share what she believed to be the most beautiful part of eroticism. She gave away a piece of herself, her way of thinking and feeling, her sensibility.
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From ‘Berezowska: Nagość dla Wszystkich’, trans. MK
The more bold scenes created by Berezowska (e.g. showing not just a pair but a whole group of lovers) wouldn’t pass censorship and weren’t published. But these were willingly purchased by private collectors. Many of her works focus on female sexual pleasure
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Maja Berezowska’s grave at Powązki Cemetery, photo: Sławomir Olzacki / Forum
In the second half of the 1960s Berezowska’s health began to deteriorate. She suffered from rheumatism, eyesight problems and also broke her right hand with which she drew. This hand didn’t heal properly and so the artist began to draw using her left hand. This posed a big problem. Her left-handed works (as well as the ones made with the injured right hand) were said to be less appealing than her earlier pieces as they exhibited a less confident style. Berezowska even asked collaborators like painter Waldemar Kiełczewski to help her complete certain artworks.
However, the change in Berezowska’s style didn’t result in her losing her popularity. In this era she created, amongst other things, illustrations for books by the poet Lech Konopiński. She provided the drawings for his Diabelskie Sztuczki (Devilish Tricks) and Rajskie Jabłuszka (Paradise Apples), published respectively in 1968 and 1971. A year later the art-dealing company Desa organised in Warsaw an exhibition of her works, which were still very sought after by private collectors.
Maja Berezowska died on 31st May 1978 in Warsaw and was buried at the local Powązki military cemetery. She left all of her earthly belongings to her friend Jadwiga Kopijowska who organised a museum dedicated to the artist at Berezowska’s former apartment in Warsaw’s Wołoska Street. Today this museum no longer exists; a large collection of Berezowska’s works is owned by the Museum of Caricature in Warsaw.
During Berezowska’s lifetime her works were often exhibited, both in Poland and abroad, for example in London, Chicago or Beirut. She’s remembered as one of the most influential creators of erotic art in Poland.
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In the history of Polish erotic art there wasn’t a more diverse creator than Berezowska. Before her no one had used eroticism as their primary means of expression. […] To her a sexual act is the most natural thing on Earth.
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From ‘Berezowska: Nagość dla Wszystkich’, trans. MK
Written by Marek Kępa, Jan 21
Source: Małgorzata Czyńska’s book ‘Berezowska: Nagość dla Wszystkich’ (Berezowska: Nudity for All), published in 2018 by Czarne Publishing House