The future master of book illustration came from an influential Jewish family, whose representatives can be found in the spheres of science, business or politics – their pro-Polish attitude is evidenced by the change in the spelling of the surname to the familiar 'Sz’. Jan Marcin, son of Edward Szancer and Stanisława née Pieracka, was the youngest child in the family. In his memoirs titled Curriculum Vitae, he described it as follows:
Father – absent-minded mathematician, mother – beautiful like Anna Jagiellon from Matejko’s portrait. Two brothers and a sister. I was the third brother, about whom it was said that he should become a pharmacist.
Jan Marcin had only one answer to his parents’ complaints about what he would grow up to be if he skipped school so often and studied poorly: 'I will be a painter'.
His father told him that once he entered a profession, he could paint as much as he liked. In the meantime, during the holidays, he sent him to a distant relative to discipline him a little by introducing him to the secrets of pharmacy.
From the first day after he was sent to a drugstore in Kańczuga near Przeworsk, young Szancer developed an 'overwhelming disgust' with pharmacological smells. Instead, he gave vent to his fantasy: 'I mixed powders, choosing them according to colours. I crushed the wafers in my fingers, shaping them into misshapen balls'. Many years later, this would inspire Jan Brzechwa to use a similar motif on the pages of his series of fairy tales with Mr Kleks, in a drawing of the character based on Franciszek Fiszer.
Soon afterwards, Szancer began studying drawing from Leonard Stroynowski, his parents’ tenant, who was paying off his overdue rent through these lessons. The impoverished painter turned out to be an effective teacher, teaching the young artist the principles of perspective and the functioning of human anatomy. Jan Marcin found his first model in his mother.
He studied history at the Jagiellonian University, but not for long. Contrary to his family’s expectations, he entered the atelier of Józef Mehoffer and Karol Frycz at the School of Fine Arts in Kraków (1920-1926). At the same time, he studied at the drama school of Marian Jednowski and Zygmunt Nowakowski (1920-1921).
Simultaneously, he painted decorations at the Powszechny Theatre on Rajska Street. He recalled his first exhibition:
I was assigned two tiny rooms in the Palace of Art with sidelight. I crowded the works from a few years together as tightly as possible. Different in format, technique and type. There were charcoal drawings from the period of the 'giants', supernaturally sized heads of Boleslaus the Bold and Orlando the Mad, and next to them a number of portraits of closer and more distant family painted in oil. There were travel sketches and landscapes, nude studies and, finally, illustrations of fairy tales.
The success of the exhibition was moderate. Embittered by its reception, he complained to Xawery Dunikowski, and the master explained: 'That’s because you're going to be an illustrator'. The young artist did not accept this prophecy, which was contrary to his own expectations, and he was 'offended to death'.
He graduated from the Kraków School of Fine Arts with good grades.
A selection of Szancer's illustrations can be viewed here...
In 1927, he became the creator of the set designed by Frycz for The Bacchus Night in the Warsaw theatre of Lucyna Messal and Kazimiera Niewiarowska, after which he proved himself as the stage designer of the Nieto-perz Theatre. Shortly afterwards, he returned to Kraków to take up a job as a graphic artist for Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny (Illustrated Courier Weekly). He deepened his knowledge in Italy and France.
Jan Marcin’s many years of work in the editorial office of IKC provided him and his family with relative stability. He designed graphics, wrote columns on cultural and social issues and reported on his travels abroad. In addition to his work at the IKC, he was co-founder and editor-in-chief of the cultural-artistic magazine Gazeta Artystów (Artist Gazette), published before World War II.
Because of his views, after a few years he resigned from his job at the IKC and returned to Warsaw, where he worked as a graphic artist for numerous magazines and publishing houses.