Boznańska. Up Close

Friday, September 5, 2025 - Sunday, November 2, 2025

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  • Friday, September 5, 2025 - Sunday, November 2, 2025
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The National Museum in Krakow is planning an exhibition dedicated to Olga Boznańska, presenting her not only as an outstanding painter but also weaving a narrative about her life and daily existence.

Krakow, her family home, held immense significance for Olga Boznańska, who was educated in Munich and built her artistic career in Paris. Throughout her life, she returned here with joy, yet simultaneously departed with a sense of relief. It was to Krakow, and specifically to the National Museum, that a large portion of the legacy from her Parisian studio was entrusted. Therefore, we feel a responsibility to revisit Boznańska's life and artistic journey. We aim to refresh public familiarity with her work, showcasing both well-known pieces and those that have never been exhibited, or not seen for nearly sixty years. This includes paintings, as well as a rich collection of sketches, sketchbooks, and early works from her youth and childhood, illustrating Boznańska's artistic development.

The exhibition features over sixty paintings—primarily the portraits she’s known for, but also still lifes and landscapes—along with a similar number of drawings, sketches, sketchbooks, and completely unknown and surprising childhood works. The exhibition will be complemented by personal mementos from Boznańska's daily life—objects she surrounded herself with: books, mirrors, small purses, trinkets, figurines, playing cards, and even clothing, including everyday attire and the apron she used for painting. For the first time, family documents and a selection of letters, including those from Józef Czajkowski, an important figure in her life, are also presented.

We want our exhibition to be not just a story about Boznańska—the artist, but also about Boznańska—the woman. We encourage you to come to our Museum not just "to see Boznańska," but "to visit Boznańska"—to see and contemplate her work, and to get to know her everyday life.

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 35, concessions PLN 25, family PLN 70, admission free to permanent exhibitions on Tuesday

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