1890
Family moves to Zakopane, due to father's illness
Witkacy is educated at home

1893
Witkacy writes his first play Cockroaches

1907
Visits Vienna and Paris. Sees Gaugin exhibition and work of cubists. Turns from landscape to portrait painting.

1910
Writes first novel The 622 Downfalls of Bungo

1912
Undergoes psychoanalysis with a Freudian analyst
First use of the name 'Witkacy'

1913
Becomes engaged to Jadwiga Janczewska
Exhibits at the Society of Friends of the Fine Arts, Kracow

1914
Jadwiga Janczewska commits suicide using Witkacy's gun
Travels with anthropologist and friend Bronislaw Malinowski to Australia
After outbreak of World War Two, joins Russian army as an officer

1915
Death of his father

1916
Serves in the elite Pavlovsky Regiment
Wounded in battle in the Ukraine

1917
Witnesses the Russian Revolution
Sees an exhibition of Picasso in St Petersburg

1918
Returns to Poland, joins the 'formists', enters an intense period of playwriting

1919
Publishes New Forms in Painting

1920
Publishes Introduction to the Theory of Pure Form in the Theatre

1921
His first play performed, in Kracow: Tumor Brainiowicz
Lectures on Pure Form

1923
Writes The Madman and the Nun

1924-26
Devoted himself to portrait painting
Some successful premieres of his plays

1927
Publishes the novel Farewell to Autumn

1928
Publishes Rules of the S. I. Witkiewicz Portrait-Painting Firm
Begins experimenting with peyote

1929
Begins long-term relationship with Czeslawa Korzeniowska

1930
Publishes science fiction novel Insatiability

1932
Publishes Narcotics: Nicotine, Alcohol, Peyote, Morphine, and Ether

1934
Writes last surviving play The Shoemakers
The young Jan Kott is present at its first reading

1935
Publishes his major work of philosophy The Concepts and Principles Implied by the Concept of Existence

1939
Flees Warsaw, commits suicide

1963
Kantor directs The Madman and the Nun in Poland

1967
Jan Kott directs The Madman and the Nun in San Fransisco

*With acknowledgement to the timeline in The Witkiewicz Reader
edited, translated, and with an introduction by Daniel Gerould
published by Northwestern University Press, Illinois, 1992