The first Bolesławiec Ceramic Fair was held in May 1994. Several exhibitors took part, and the event was enhanced by a modest concert by the municipal brass band.
We know two founding myths of the festival. The first attributes the idea of organizing a ceramic fair to Stanisław Wiza (1929–2018), who decided that selling ceramics in the Bolesławiec market square would be “a nice revenge” in the economic war over patents and sales markets.
The second tells of an initiative by Danuta Maślicka (1941–2022), who, together with local-government officials in free Poland, organized the first ceramic fair as a window onto the Western world.
My idea is the most mine, or the father of the fair versus the mother
In the memoir of the Parowa ceramic artist Stanisław Wiza, published in print in 2015, the author of the recollections “How the Fair Became a Festival…” added the subtitle: “The History of the Creation of the Bolesławiec Ceramic Festival in Bolesławiec in the Recollections of Its Main Originator, Stanisław Wiza.”
Danuta Maślicka, the longtime head of the cultural center in Bolesławiec, attributed the idea of creating the fair to herself and the activities of the local-government institution she led, describing it in the 2009 Bolesławiec Yearbook.
Maślicka reportedly got the idea after reading an interview with the German translator of Polish literature, Karl Dedecius, entitled “A Window onto the World.” Dedecius was said to have shared his thoughts there on the role of trade fairs and compared them to a window through which one nation has the opportunity to observe another. The context was the Polish-German general trade fair being held in Wrocław at the time.
In “How the Fair Became a Festival…,” Wiza claimed that a fair promoting Bolesławiec ceramic artists, accompanied by events and concerts, was his idea and his initiative alone. Wiza did not spare Danuta Maślicka, who had been captivated by the German translator’s window metaphor.
In his memoirs, he wrote directly that Maślicka was almost an enemy of ceramic exhibitions in the Bolesławiec market square. He did not call her an opponent of the fair itself, but rather regarded her as a brake on it: an extremely unhelpful person who did not want some “private businessman from Parowa” setting up a marketplace in the city center, and who firmly opposed supporting trade with cultural events organized by municipal cultural institutions.
The Patent War That Shook Bolesławiec’s Ceramic Artists
Stanisław Wiza did not believe that fairs were windows onto the world through which one nation observes another. He did not possess the poetic soul of the intellectual, teacher and lifelong state employee Danuta Maślicka.
Stanisław Wiza, albeit with a large dose of megalomania, described how he ran a private company and, after the changes of 1989, simply had to survive in the new economic reality. In 1990, the ceramic community no longer had centrally allocated production, which eliminated competition and ensured equal access to orders as it had during communist times.
Ceramics producers began competing with one another in every respect. Wiza reportedly discovered that one of the large Cepelia plants (today Ceramika Artystyczna “Spółdzielnia Rękodzieła Artystycznego”), specifically Bronisław Wolanin, who worked there, had patented old German stamped-decoration designs as his own.
Shortly after this shocking discovery, Wiza was also reportedly sent a letter from Cepelia demanding that he immediately stop producing vessels decorated using the stamping method. For Wiza and his company, this would have meant professional death, because the letter informed him that Cepelia held patents on most of the designs.
– I was threatened in that letter with various penalties, court proceedings and the obligation to pay damages – Wiza complained in his memoirs, and began a legal battle with Wolanin.
The case dragged on for a long time, and the verdict was not entirely satisfactory for Wiza, but in the end the court ruled that all ceramic artists could use the stamping-decoration method and designs they had been using for years.
– I decided that Bronisław Wolanin’s patent defeat alone was not enough to punish the man’s and his company’s pomposity. Something more spectacular had to be done. That was when I came up with the idea of a ceramic exhibition showing that stamped ceramics were not the domain of “Cepelia” alone, but of all ceramic artists from Bolesławiec and the surrounding area – Wiza adds in his memoirs.
Wiza shared the idea with the then director of Zakłady Ceramiczne “Bolesławiec,” Kazimierz Surmiak, who knew about the lawsuit, and with one of the region’s larger ceramic producers, Janusz Jakubowski, who was said to have remarked that the fair could be “a nice revenge” on Wolanin and Cepelia.
Revenge, or the Fair Begins
Both Maślicka and Wiza describe differently in their memoirs the same meeting with the then mayor, Józef Król, whom they had to approach for their idea to become reality.
– Valuable observations were made about the global trend toward organizing specialized rather than general trade fairs, about the arrival of a professional audience, and about how fairs could become an opportunity to present a given industry and to conclude contracts and agreements – Danuta Maślicka described the meeting in the Yearbook.
Wiza described it differently: as a meeting with an unsympathetic official, full of doubts and additionally reluctant to have the event held in the market square. He was supposedly persuaded only by the promise that the fair itself would have an artistic program.
– Without much enthusiasm, we therefore received permission for the fair to be located in the market square. Unfortunately, we could not count on an artistic program organized by municipal institutions – Wiza recounted his meeting with Król in his diary.
He also added how difficult and costly it had been to prepare the first ceramic fair. He stressed that neither the city, nor the county office, nor Danuta Maślicka had helped him organize or finance the undertaking. He claimed that he alone dealt with inviting the artists, hosted them, arranged accommodation and paid for the performances.
The Orchestra Played and Trading Began
Maślicka admits in her memoirs that the first fair in May 1994 was organized with money from ceramic producers. Their support was supposedly provided by a Bolesławiec Local Television competition for the most impressive display. The prize was a free advertising film. It went to Zakłady Ceramiczne “Bolesławiec” for a display prepared by Janina Bany-Kozłowska.
– Alongside the ceramic fair in the market square, a promotional exhibition was open in the Forum lobby, a rudimentary version of a real trade fair, featuring the companies sponsoring the event: Certilex from Gościszów, Surmin from Nowogrodziec and Ceramika Budowlana from Przyborsko – Maślicka recalled in the Yearbook, which would suggest that she really distanced herself from the private pot sellers trading in the market square and that, for her, the fair was a different event from Wiza’s.
Stanisław Wiza wrote that at the first fair each exhibitor had to pay a site fee that also covered the costs of cleaning services, security and an honorarium for the Brass Band then operating at Bolesławieckie Zakłady Fiolek i Ampułek “Polfa.”
– At the start of the event, the orchestra gave an almost hour-long concert combined with a short march. There was no grand opening, speeches by dignitaries or invited guests. The orchestra played and trading began – Wiza recalled.
And while Danuta Maślicka looked hopefully toward the future and was already organizing subsequent ceramic fairs in her mind, the entrepreneurs themselves considered the first fair rather unsuccessful.
– To encourage participation in the 1995 Ceramics and Glass Fair in Bolesławiec, we pointed out, among other things, that the fascination with plastic was slowly fading, stoneware products and unconventional ceramics were returning to favor, and that the artist’s hand gave them their final form and character – Maślicka wrote about her plans after the first fair – In one interview entitled “Ceramics versus Gnomes,” I said that we had to defend ourselves against the army of plaster gnomes approaching the gates of our city, which would be a blemish on our ceramic honor and offend the eye with bad taste – she added in her memoirs.
Stanisław Wiza remembered the first fair as an event that attracted little interest.
– The individual exhibitors’ takings did not even cover the cost of renting their stall spaces. There were not many buyers or people looking at the products either – Wiza described that period.
Did Revenge Taste Sweet?
Wiza recalled that the second fair in 1995 was a complete commercial failure for the entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, they did not give up. They lived to see the time when Danuta Maślicka was replaced by Franciszek Bachór, and Mayor Król by Józef Burniak. In Wiza’s opinion, both eventually supported the ceramic artists and their fair as they should.
However, the greatest admiration in Wiza was aroused by Ewa Zbroja, whom the ceramic artist called “a Gift from God,” although it was rather a gift from Piotr Roman, because he decided to employ Zbroja as director of BOK and it was his decision to entrust her with overseeing the ceramic fair.
– Mrs. Ewa had virtually unlimited numbers of ideas. She constantly added new ventures to the festival. BŚC grew to a considerable size. The 13th Bolesławiec Ceramic Festival, or thereabouts, became a two-day event, and soon transformed into a three-day one – Wiza recalled.
However, that joy did not last long either: the director of the cultural center was changed again, and Stanisław Wiza liked the new director much less, but that is an entirely different story.