Polish Art Gallery

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The latest instalment of the permanent gallery of contemporary art at the Main Building of the National Museum in Krakow presents a fresh take by the museum’s curators. We will see works from the Young Poland period, modernism, expressionism, colourism and avantgarde, art by the Second Kraków Group and the Wprost and Ładnie groups, all the way to the most recent artworks.

The exhibition provides an overview of the multitude of artistic phenomena and trends that have appeared in Poland over the last 120 years. The Gallery exhibits works by all the greatest artists, from Stanisław Wyspiański, Jacek Malczewski, Józef Mehoffer, and Wojciech Weiss, to works by Zbigniew Pronaszko, Zofia Stryjeńska, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Leon Chwistek, Jan Cybis, as well asTadeusz Kantor, Maria Jarema, Jerzy Nowosielski, Roman Opałka, Ryszard Winiarski, Andrzej Wróblewski, Wojciech Fangor, Łukasz Korolkiewicz, Ewa Kuryluk and many others. Sculpture is represented, among others, by Xawery Dunikowski, Konstanty Laszczka, Alina Szapocznikow, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Maria Pinińska-Bereś, and Władysław Hasior. The exhibition also features representatives of artistic groups such as Wprost (Leszek Sobocki, Zbylut Grzywacz), Ładnie (Wilhelm Sasnal, Marcin Maciejowski), and Gruppa (Jarosław Modzelewski, Włodzimierz Pawlak).

For the first time in the Gallery, apart from painting and sculpture, museum also presents art glass and ceramics (Henryk Albin Tomaszewski, Alina Kalczyńska-Scheiwiller) as well as the Kraków school of graphics from 1960-1985 (Jerzy Panek, Mieczysław Wejman, Zbigniew Lutomski, Ryszard Otręba). The new exhibition is also used as a space to show animated and experimental films (Julian Józef Antoniszczak, Jan Lenica).

Tickets: normal PLN 28, concessions PLN 15, family PLN 56, admission free on Tuesday

The Main Building

al. 3 Maja 1

The central phenomena of the Polish art of the 20th and 21st century, the history of Polish weaponry and uniforms, a gallery of crafts, and a dozen major temporary exhibitions each year.

The quickly expanding collection of the National Museum, set up in 1879, soon needed space that Kraków did not have at that time. That is why the idea to erect a new building that at the same time would commemorate the many years of efforts to regain Poland’s independence was born early in the 20th century. Immediately after the end of the First World War, already in free Poland, funds for the construction of an appropriate seat began to be raised. The construction of the building by the imposing Aleje Trzech Wieszczów, staked out just two decades earlier, began in 1934. Today, the National Museum in Kraków boasts several branches, with no fewer than three permanent galleries in the Main Building alone. Deposited on the ground floor are the collections of militaria: the exhibition Arms and Uniforms in Poland (gallery closed until further notice) presents the history of the Polish military from the Middle Ages to the Second World War. The Gallery of Decorative Arts boasts collections of fabrics, goldsmithry, glass, ceramics, furniture, musical instruments, and Judaica that let the visitor trace changes in style from the early Middle Ages to the 20th century. The Polish Art Gallery presents the chronology and key tendencies in painting, sculpture and printmaking as created by the Polish artists of the 20th and 21st century. The largest temporary exhibitions of the National Museum in Kraków are organised in specially designed halls.

Tickets to permanent galleries: normal PLN 32, concessions PLN 25, family PLN 64, admission free to permanent exhibitions on Tuesday

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