Virtual tours

He renders his subjects as flat shapes, deformed figures, painted with a limited palette dominated by black, white, gray and interjected with splashes of green or light blue. The colours, poses, en face view and central framing bring to mind photography and film stills. MORE

The faces and figures of Myjak’s subjects reflect our deeply harboured anxieties and fears – or the reasons why we pine for contact with art. Overly expressive, deformed, yet far from abstract, they reflect the complexity of human nature and our internal baggage, from the tribulations of our existence to the glory of rare moments of ecstasy and rapture. MORE

Jarosław Modzelewski – painter, educator, co-founder of the famous artistic collective Gruppa, a circle brought to life on the first anniversary of the introduction of martial law in Poland, and officially buried ten years later in Warsaw’s Zachęta Gallery. Modzelewski started with ideograms, signs, templates, and by mid-1980s turned to figurative, although surreal art. MORE

We admire Różewicz as a poet, dramaturge, prose writer, and set designer. We appreciate his extraordinary oeuvre and the influence he exerted on Polish literature. Are we, however, aware of his strong presence in almost all spheres of Polish art? The exhibition proves that Róźewicz’s links with visual artists were close and inspired his poetry. MORE

He studied with the best, for example in the studio of Józef Mehoffer and Józef Pankiewicz at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. Cybis, like other colourists, painted mainly still lifes and landscapes. His paintings are characterized by their freedom of texture, colour capacity and a characteristic, expressive application of stain. MORE

A sculptor and graduate of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, in the studio of prof. Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz she discovers that ‘repetition of nature ends as the problem of interpretation arises’. Interpreting, she uses a variety of materials: stone, metal, plaster, porcelain or epoxy. MORE

Hasior is a symbol of Zakopane. Just like fellow artists Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz aka Witkacy, Antoni Kenar, or Tadeusz Brzozowski, he settled down in the capital of the Tatra mountains and left a lasting mark on the town’s artistic life. The gallery housing his works has been considered a must-see tourist attraction for decades now. MORE

For a few decades he titled almost all of his works ‘Landscape’, distinguishing them by date and number only. One thing is certain: for Rajmund Ziemski, landscape art does not mean the depiction of idyllic natural scenery. This excellent colourist, student of Artur Nacht-Samborski, and one of the first recipients of the Cybis Prize, Poland’s most prestigious painting award, did not occupy himself with portraying nature.  His paintings are consistently abstract, and – despite his gesture changing over the years – magically coherent in style. MORE

The greatest musical genius next to Chopin, the Polish Schubert, the absolute precursor of the operatic genre in his homeland. Everybody knows what ‘Moniuszko’ sounds like. But what was Stanisław actually like? Where did he draw his inspiration from, where did he travel and whom did he keep in touch with? He has looked down at as from portraits for years – with the dignity of a bard, brooding over the fate of the nation. MORE

His interest in many scientific disciplines, love for music and art, and familiarity with different cultures produces pieces that are poetic treatises painted on canvas. The building blocks that form the structure of Zbigniew Makowski’s works are numbers, words taken from different languages and written in different scripts, various geometric shapes, archetypal signs for objects, and symbols. His art is a record of his personal experiences. MORE

Ignacy Jan Paderewski was the most famous pianist of his time. He made excellent use of his extraordinary popularity and phenomenal contacts in the world of politics and finance by lobbying for the reconstruction of Poland. He later served as its first Prime Minister. As a French magazine puts it, Paderewski was a ‘double virtuoso’ – of the keyboard and of the rostrum. MORE