Mère Ubu and Franciszka Themerson, 1970.

Franciszka Themerson designed the life-size puppets for the Ubu Roi production at the Marionetteatern in Stockholm in 1964 directed by Michael Meschke and photographed by Beata Bergström. But this wasn’t Franciszka’s first involvement with Alfred Jarry’s Ubu. The production of Kung Ubu happened because Michael Meschke saw the first English translation of Ubu Roi with Franciszka’s drawings, published by Gaberbocchus Press, 1951, and translated by Barbara Wright.