It was to this young deceased artist that Ficowski owed one of these “primal adventures in imagination,” but also a lasting fascination. He dedicated one of his poems to Wojtkiewicz, and later an entire book, in which he talks about the artist’s life, writing, paintings and the characters inhabiting those paintings, creatures “cast into helplessness of orphanhood.”

Witold Wojtkiewicz (1879-1909) was one of Ficowski’s “Three Magi”, his artistic masters. Other than paintings and engravings, the artist left little material for researchers. Like he had done with Schulz, Ficowski gathered Wojtkiewicz’s surviving manuscripts and knowledge about his life. Both are presented in W sierocińcu świata (In the World’s Orphanage), a book that was initially withdrawn from distribution by the author, who was not satisfied the hastily prepared publication. Fortunately for Ficowski and Wojtkiewicz, soon after the failed initial publication, Galeria Browarna Publishing House published the beautifully edited Witold Wojtkiewicz Album. It contains satirical feuilletons signed with the artist’s pseudonym “Wit-Woj”, his letters, reproductions of his works and Ficowski’s essays devoted to each of them. Ficowski’s poem Zmierzch o świcie (Dusk at Dawn) was an attempt to convey the “hallucinatory suggestiveness” of those paintings.