Helena Bukowska-Szlekys

Helena Bukowska-Szlekys grew up in various parts of Russia, where her father worked as an engineer, building railways, and did not come to Poland before 1919. She studied graphics and painting at Vilnius, which belonged to Poland for most of the time between the wars, and later at Warszawa, specializing in interior design and mural painting, and in 1936 graduated in interior design. Three years earlier, she had been appointed head of the weaving department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warszawa. She also worked on weaving techniques and was considered one of the pioneers of the industrial production of carpets with distinctive patterns. After World War II, Bukowska-Szlekys activated her pre-War artists’ cooperative “Ład” and created the interior decoration of the Polish ocean liner Stefan Batory. Her woven tapestry The Athlete won second prize in the respective category in the Polish qualification which was submitted for the 1948 Olympic art competitions. The fabric also comes from the Ład weaving mill and has been restored in the last decade. In Polish sources its title is Biegacz (Runner).

In the early 1950s, Bukowska-Szlekys was one of the founders of the Artistic Weaving Studio and joined the Association of Polish Visual Artists. She is considered one of the pioneers of the industrial manufacture of carpets with characteristic patterns. In doing so, she combined her own modern patterns with tradition and folk art. Olgierd Szlekys, the husband of Helena Bukowska, was an interior designer, decorator, painter and caricaturist.