Koadiutor Jan Kajzer współtwórcą polskiego stylu art deco

Abstract

The design work of the Salesian Coadjutor Jan Kajzer (1892-1976) is not generally known, even though he was an esteemed artist in the inter-war period. He began his education in the years 1908-12 at the Salesian Crafts School in Oświęcim, and subsequently attended the Nuremberg School of Interior Design (1921-22), Cracow’s School of Industrial Arts (1924-26), and the Technische und Kunstgewerbliche Tischler Fachschule in Cothen (Anhalt) (1926). From 1930, Kajzer studied at the Department of Interior Design at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts under, among others, the guidance of Wojciech Jastrzębowski (later on Kajzer became his assistant). On the basis of his design projects, he was invited to join the Ład Artistic Cooperative. At the 1936 Ład’s exhibition, he displayed a set of living-room furniture which was widely praised. He won a number of awards: that of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education in 1936; an individual prize of the National Culture Fund; and a prize of the Guild of Master Carpenters, Turners, and Sculptors in Poznan. During World War II, Kajzer designed many sacral interiors.