Galician Hall

The room on the third floor of the Art Nouveau building at 8 Tuska Street presents a collection of art inspired by the folk culture of Malopolska (Lesser Poland), Podhale and Hutsul, i.e. the lands of the so-called Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, which were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the time, the main centre of national artistic life in this area was Krakow, which even overshadowed the province's administrative capital, Lviv. Not without significance was the School of Fine Arts, whose students, drawing on the Romantic tradition and assimilating some of the achievements of Impressionism and Symbolism, turned their interests to the everyday life of the province and the landscape. The greatest representatives of the bohemia of the time, such as Stanisław Wyspiański, whose Madonna of the Countryside - an original copy of a polychrome painting for the Franciscan church - is one of the pearls of not only the new exhibition, but also of our entire collection.

The exhibition is primarily a presentation of paintings. It features works by well-known and recognised artists, such as Włodzimierz Tetmajer, who settled in Bronowice near Kraków and portrayed his neighbours and the surrounding area; Teodor Axentowicz, a frequent visitor to Parisian salons, who drew the Carpathian mountaineers; and the so-called "Huculs", who were associated with the Lvov community: Władysław Jarocki, Fryderyk Pautsch, Kazimierz Sichulski. They are accompanied by works by artists less remembered today: Alfons Karpiński, Ludwik Stasiak, Wincenty Wodzinowski. There is also a "Mazovian accent" of sorts: a modest yet highly expressive painting by Franciszek Szwoch, a painter born in nearby Płońsk.

The exhibition is complemented by sculptures by Konstanty Laszczka and Marian Dudek. Of the handicraft items on display, there is furniture with impressive woodcarving decoration by Wojciech Brzegi, made by the Lvov workshop of Jan Rużalski, as well as ceramic breakfast sets designed by Jan Szczepkowski according to drawings by the "father" of the Zakopane style, Stanisław Witkiewicz, and manufactured by Jan Niedźwiedzki's company in Dębniki near Kraków. The collection of artistic objects of everyday use is enriched by examples of original Hutsul handicrafts donated to the museum collection already before World War II and presented for the first time at the permanent exhibition.