A concise history of women originating from the city of Lodz acting either as Flâneuses or women artists, at the beginning of modern era until the end of worldwar II. an attempt of re-interpretation of the literary and art history canon

The purpose of this paper is an attempt of re-interpretation of the literary and art history canon in the context of female writers and visual artists living in Lodz. The idea of the flâneur was developed by a German Walter Benjamin in the 1920s and 1930s during Modernism time, when the “surreal” potential of the industrial urban space was intensively explored. The concept has exerted considerable impact on the way how we now interpret 19th and 20th century depictions of the city. I will analyze the meanings of the texts written by Waleria Marrené-Morzkowska (Ws´ród ka˛kolu 1890), the memoirs of Anna Clare and also the creative output of the female artists from Young Yiddish Group (1918–1921) as well as the sculptures and memoirs of Katarzyna Kobro (1898–1951) – the most intriguing female artist connected with Lodz. She was an accomplished sculptor who was under great influence of Constructivism, she strongly rejected individualism, subjectivism and expressionism, and she postulated instead an absolute objectivism of form. She was instrumental in the establishment of the Museum of Modern Art in Lodz