Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (39.1998)

In April 1894 she moved to Montmartre, not far from Place Clichy; her
neighbours were Serusier, Bonnard, and Toulouse-Lautrec. At the end of that
year she had already amassed the major portion of her collection; in a letter
to Laurysiewicz of November 16 she wrote: “My apartment is turning into
a museum. I have van Gogh, Gauguin, Denis, Vuillard, Anąuetin, sculpture by
Lacombe, Riotto and others. I have so many paintings and sculptures that
I don’t have enough walls; six canvasses stand in the cabmet de toilette, waiting
for better times when I have a larger apartment.”26 27 28 It is unknown exactly how
she came to possess such an outstanding collection of works. She probably
received the greatest part from Serusier, yet some she must have acąuired
herself. Among the works in her collection was George Lacombe’s painting
known to us from the Eleventh Exhibition of the Societe des Artistes
Independents.2 In May 1895 Zapolska went to Warsaw, imtially mtending to
stay only a few months, sińce she wanted to return to Paris. Yet she settled in
Poland for the rest of her life. She brought her collection of works with her,
and not possessing an apartment large enough to contain them, she kept them
in storage until November, 1898, when the collection was transferred to
CracowA The writer complained in a letter to Ludwik Szczepański at the end
of November of that year that: “The paintings are covered with mold.
Everything is shattered, and broken [...] Valuable porcelain smashed into pieces
[...1 figurines of porcelain de Sevres are put in tubs and waste baskets stand on
pastel drawings.”29 30 31 Zapolska’s collection became well known in Cracow; many
people came to her apartment to view it/° In 1904 she moved permanently
to Lwów (present-day Lviv) and transported her paintings, sculptures, and
drawings with her. In 1906, she exhibited the collection publicly in the building
of the Society for the Friends of the Fine Arts in Lwów.11 Słowo Polskie thus
described the event: “In a separate hall, beautifully furnished and decorated
by Stanisław Dębski, an exhibition opened today of 25 paintings from the
yaluable collection of G. Zapolska. The collection is in essence yaluable, very
yaluable; the walls are hung with works by the premier masters of great
worth [...] These delightful paintings collected abroad constitute one of the
most yaluable collections [,..]”32 Zapolska personally wrote the foreword to

26 Listy..., op. cit., I, (no. 276), p. 469.

27 Publicystyka, op. cit., II, p. 484, and Publicystyka, op. cit., III, Wrocław-Warszawa, p. 602.

28 Publicystyka, op. cit., III, p. 600.

29 Listy..., op. cit., I, p. 554.

30 Ibid., p. 566.

31 Cf. Wystawa obrazów ze zbiorów Gabryeli Zapolskiej, Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Sztuk Pięknych,
Lwów 1906; J. Czachowska, “Gabrieli Zapolskiej listy o sztuce”, Sztuka i Krytyka, VIII, 1957,
p. 249 provides the information that in 1900 Zapolska exhibited her collections for the first time
in the Society for the Friends of the Fine Arts (TPSP) in Lwów. The fact that such an exhibition
was organised is confirmed in Polskie Zycie Artystyczne, ed. by A. Wojciechowski, Wrocław-
Warszawa-Kraków 1967, pp. 51-52. Neither in the press at the time nor in Zapolska’s
correspondence is there any information about this event. In later works Czachowska does not
mention an exhibition in 1900.

32 J. Czachowska, Gabriela Zapolska. Monografia bio-bibliograficzna, Kraków 1966, p. 331.

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