Painter, graphic artist and playwright. Author of polychromes and stained glass at home and abroad. He took part in more than forty individual exhibitions and dozens of group exhibitions. He was born on 20 December 1896 in Krakow and died on 15 May 1969.

He owed his introduction to the world of art to his father, Alojzy Bunsch (1859-1916), who was a professor of sculpture at the Cracow Industrial School from 1892 to 1916. Following in his footsteps, he took up studies at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in 1914. He had to interrupt his studies due to military service in the Austrian army. In 1916, he was transferred from Sopron to Krakow, where he stayed as a painter's assistant at the garrison hospital until 1918. In 1917 he took up two courses of study. At the Jagiellonian University he chose philosophy, while at the Academy of Fine Arts he chose painting in the atelier of Józef Mehoffer. His career and artistic development were again put on the back burner when he volunteered for the Polish Army in November 1918. As a member of the 3rd Battery of the 1st Field Artillery Regiment of the Legions, he took part in the eastern campaigns. After the war, he returned to his native Kraków, where he continued his studies in art and philosophy, graduating in 1921. That same year, having obtained the necessary qualifications, he moved to Bielsko, where he taught drawing and geometry at the State Industrial School until 1939.

Not wishing to give up his contacts with the flourishing artistic life, however, he constantly visited Krakow, where he hung around with writers associated with the editors of the "Literary Newspaper". In this environment, he met Witkacy, who portrayed him in 1933, among other places. Having matured in the circle of such strong personalities, he reached for the pen himself. He shared his love of literature with his brother, Karol Bunsch. "Steam Horse", staged in 1933 at the City Theatre in Krakow, was Adam Bunsch's dramatic debut. Janusz Degler, a distinguished historian of literature, believes that it was an important inspiration for the author of "Szewcy". Bunsch's catastrophic vision of the future, in which the development of technology is linked to moral decay, was, however, received coldly by the Kraków audience. Reflections on the progress of civilisation also found their continuation in his later dramas ('The Tower of Babel', 1961; 'The Last Poem', 1958).

He took an active part in the activities of the "Theatre Confraternity". Bunsch's artistic education and versatile interests also led him to try his hand at theatre stage design. Together with Tadeusz Kudliński and Wiesław Gorecki, he was one of the co-authors of the development of the "New Realisation of Hamlet" (1936), based on Wyspiański's study. The initiative to create a theatrical repertoire to accompany the 1939 Krakow Days became a catalyst for Bunsch to write two plays about characters strongly associated with the Podawel Castle: Wit Stwosz and Adam Chmielowski. ("Wit Stwosz's Altar", 1942; "The Pigeons of Brother Albert", 1943).

Adam Bunsch's oeuvre includes 30 plays, most of them unpublished, except for 6 which were included in the volume "Dramaty" (1974).

The interwar period was the most intensive in his artistic work, also in the field of fine arts. At that time, he undertook a constant search for means of expression and easily adapted various stylistic conventions. He was shaped by symbolism, characteristic of Young Poland, which can be perfectly illustrated by his oil painting "Lecture on Man" (1923). Here, Bunsch built the form mainly with colour - synthesizing and resigning from details (e.g. facial features of figures). From the perspective of the artist's later works on the subject of war, one can see in this scene a bitter reckoning with the past. However, the symbolism contained in the painting also gives it a more universal, eschatological meaning.

The need to settle accounts with history culminated in a series of works dedicated to the war. The painterly reminiscences of the First World War are not accompanied by a historiosophical vision, typical of Polish painting, summarising national captivity and insurrectionary uprisings, but by a reflection on the fate of an individual caught up in the mechanism of the world conflict ("The Seized Trench", 1930; "Fatum", 1931). In this series, Bunsch balanced between a relatively faithful imitation of nature (despite some deformation of the proportions of the figures, as in "Wake-up Call", 1932) and a freer way of approaching the subject. An example of the second convention can be seen in 'Review of the Retreat' (1927), a bold composition based on perspective abbreviation, synthesis and geometrisation of shapes, and the contrast of yellow and green. Nor did he reject Young Poland symbolism, with its characteristic fascination with the figure personifying death ('Carbine Ball', 1929).

New qualities were introduced into his painting by a journey (1928-1929) along the route: Paris - Rome - Florence - Venice - Vienna and his exposure to post-impressionist tendencies. He began to amplify the intensity of colours, lighten the palette and incorporate a clear texture, showing spontaneous, sweeping brushstrokes ('Paris - Seine', 1928). Between 1933 and 1939, he became associated with a colour-oriented formation, the 'Group of Ten', founded by Teodor Grott in 1932.

His artistic inclinations were inherited from Adam Bunsch by his sons: a stage designer - Ali (1925-1985) and a graphic artist - Franciszek (born 1926). The subtle pastel images of his four children ('Sleeping Child', 1932; 'Portrait of a Daughter', 1934) are reminiscent of the works of Stanisław Wyspiański.

The global conflict threw him back to the front: on 2 September 1939, he left Bielsko with General J. Kustronia's 21st Mountain Infantry Division. After the unit's defeat, he left Poland and was interned in Hungary. In 1940, he managed to escape to France, from where he set off for England. He was soon assigned as an education officer in the 10th Armoured Cavalry Brigade, serving in Forfar. In 1943, he was promoted to lieutenant in General S. Maczek's 1st Armoured Division.
He signed his works written during the war, as well as his dramas, with a pseudonym. In England and Scotland, he produced memoirs ('Letters to his wife - unsent', 'The year 1942 - diary'), oil paintings and sketches. With sanguine, pencil and watercolour, he immortalised on paper scenes of army life ('A review of a tank platoon's stopover', 1943), the 1st Independent Parachute Brigade ('Parachutist at RAF Station in Dunino', 1942), English aviation ('Fighter at an airfield', 1944), among others.

Between 1943 and 1945 he designed 11 narrative and as many decorative windows for Our Lady of Czestochowa and St Casimir's Church in London. They illustrate the struggles of Poles to regain their sovereign statehood and the intercession of saints accompanying their efforts. The nation is comforted by: Mother of God (protecting those fleeing misfortune with her mantle) and St Barbara (patron saint of prisoners and soldiers, accompanied by the symbol of Fighting Poland). The figures of Blessed Czesław Odrowąż (rescuer of Wrocław, besieged in the 12th century) and St Andrew Bobola (heralding the resurrection of Poland after the First World War by a Dominican monk in the 19th century) are confirmation of the divine intercession accompanying the Poles so far. The hands of the faithful raised towards Mary and Blessed Odrowąż are reminiscent of the compositional solution applied by Mehoffer in the carton for the stained glass window of Wawel Cathedral ('Sancta Virgo', before 1910, collection of the National Museum in Warsaw). Adam Bunsch also included in this ensemble scenes relating to recent history - the campaign in France in 1940 ("Taking up the Banner") and in England 1940-1941 ("Veil of St. Veronica").

He returned to Poland in 1945 and settled in Krakow, where he took up teaching activities at the PSP (1947-1952). In 1951, his "Handbook of drawing for vocational schools" was published.

After the subsequent experiences of war, the artist moved away from symbolic, narrative compositions. In the genre scenes of the 1960s, he returned to post-impressionist inspirations. The paintings of this period acquired vivid colours and a coarse texture, applied with violent strokes of paint that do not cover entire canvases, which give the impression of being unfinished ('Cutters and Boats', 1965; 'Repair of Cutters', 1967). He strongly synthesised and reduced forms ('Gypsies', 1948; 'Gypsy Camp', 1948). The affirmation of nature combined with naturalistic precision resulted in exquisite studies of various species of plants ('Lilies', 1967) and animals ('Finches on a Pine Tree', 1967), alluding to the tradition of Japanese art. The artist executed them primarily in the colour woodcut technique, which he had already undertaken before the war.

His love of the native landscape resulted in views of, among others, the Tatra Mountains and Lower Silesia in various techniques. Travels in Europe - to Greece and Crete (1957), England (1958, 1961), France, Italy and Austria (1961-1962) were the source of subjects for many of his landscape watercolours ('Knossos', 1957; 'Regent's Park in London', 1961).

Adam Bunsch also created works to accompany sacred spaces. According to his design, 222 stained glass windows were realised in 34 churches in Poland and 27 in England and Scotland. The first set was created just before the war (19 stained-glass windows for the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Katowice, 1936-1939). Most of them were made by the Cracow factories, including Stanisław Gabriel Żeleński (with whom, for example, Mehoffer and Wyspiański collaborated) and Karol Paczka.