DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31381#0019
THE HISTORY AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COLLECTION
17
a moderate price, even for a symbolic zloty, works of promising young artists to be
evaluated again after fifty years and only then — possibly — inscribed in the Museum’s
inventory. In such a way the Museum, at small expense, managed to have at its disposal
the creations of contemporary art, without running the risk of endorsing the works that
would not stand the test of time. Up till 1939 forty-five paintings had been acquired
by the Gallery. After the war all of them found their way into the Museum’s collections
and the Gallery itself ended its days.
The take-over of the Museum by the Ministry of Culture and
Art in 1949 bettered its financial possibilities. The Museum could now both document
the current plastic activities and enlarge the collections of paintings from the first half of
the 20th century by purchasing the objects meant to enrich and complement the
permanent display. Yet, the effects of the Museum’s purchase policy were shaped not
only by a changeable financial condition but also by a limited access to works of art in the
antiquarian trade. Thus, the object of purchase were often paintings presented to the
Museum earlier as deposits. Also, while accepting larger donations, the Museum
sometimes paid for individual items, in order to improve the donors’ difficult material
condition. As far as possible the Museum tried to buy works belonging to one set. In this
way the Museum’s possessions became enriched with a fragment of the collection of the
Raczyriski family, including four paintings by Jacek Malczewski, deposited in 1939 at the
Society of Friends of the Fine Arts and later purchased from Katarzyna Raczyriska from
London, or with several paintings from Mieczyslaw Kot’s collection. Beginning from the
late 1980s, a dramatic rise in the prices of works of art, accompanied by a simultaneous
decrease in the budget means assigned for purchases, has practically made it impossible
for the Museum to compete in this respect with private buyers.
The stock of Polish painting from the close of the 19th and the 1st half of the 20th century,
in the National Museum in Cracow counts among the most numerous and complete
museum complexes in Poland. First of all, it contains an excellent collection of painting of
Young Poland, comprising the largest sets existing in Poland of works by Olga Boznariska,
Jan Stanislawski and Stanislaw Wyspiariski, together with extensive complexes of Jacek
Malczewski’s, Leon Wyczolkowski’s and Jozef Pankiewicz’s creations. From among the
painters of the generation active after World War I, only Zbigniew Pronaszko is widely
represented — by means of over one hundred pictures. Although the Museum collections
encompass works of almost all leading Polish artists of the first half of this century,
a predominance of painters connected with Cracow is clearly visible. In the case of an
earlier phase, from before World War I, this proportion reflects to a high degree the artistic
geography of the period: it was Cracow, then the nucleus of intellectual and cultural life in
Poland, which became also the chief artistic centre in Poland, owing to the reformed
School (later Academy) of Fine Arts, to the existence of the Society of Polish Artists
„Sztuka” (“Art”) and to the possibilities of international contacts. Things were different
in the inter-war period, when some lively artistic circles were formed in Poland, often
considerably different from one another: not sill of them are adequately represented
among the resources of the Cracovian Museum. This feature of the collections results
from the fact that they were formed mainly through the donations by local collectors and
artists linked to Cracow—the purchase policy later corrected those disproportions only to
a limited extent. This “Cracow-oriented” character of the collection is an obstacle towards
17
a moderate price, even for a symbolic zloty, works of promising young artists to be
evaluated again after fifty years and only then — possibly — inscribed in the Museum’s
inventory. In such a way the Museum, at small expense, managed to have at its disposal
the creations of contemporary art, without running the risk of endorsing the works that
would not stand the test of time. Up till 1939 forty-five paintings had been acquired
by the Gallery. After the war all of them found their way into the Museum’s collections
and the Gallery itself ended its days.
The take-over of the Museum by the Ministry of Culture and
Art in 1949 bettered its financial possibilities. The Museum could now both document
the current plastic activities and enlarge the collections of paintings from the first half of
the 20th century by purchasing the objects meant to enrich and complement the
permanent display. Yet, the effects of the Museum’s purchase policy were shaped not
only by a changeable financial condition but also by a limited access to works of art in the
antiquarian trade. Thus, the object of purchase were often paintings presented to the
Museum earlier as deposits. Also, while accepting larger donations, the Museum
sometimes paid for individual items, in order to improve the donors’ difficult material
condition. As far as possible the Museum tried to buy works belonging to one set. In this
way the Museum’s possessions became enriched with a fragment of the collection of the
Raczyriski family, including four paintings by Jacek Malczewski, deposited in 1939 at the
Society of Friends of the Fine Arts and later purchased from Katarzyna Raczyriska from
London, or with several paintings from Mieczyslaw Kot’s collection. Beginning from the
late 1980s, a dramatic rise in the prices of works of art, accompanied by a simultaneous
decrease in the budget means assigned for purchases, has practically made it impossible
for the Museum to compete in this respect with private buyers.
The stock of Polish painting from the close of the 19th and the 1st half of the 20th century,
in the National Museum in Cracow counts among the most numerous and complete
museum complexes in Poland. First of all, it contains an excellent collection of painting of
Young Poland, comprising the largest sets existing in Poland of works by Olga Boznariska,
Jan Stanislawski and Stanislaw Wyspiariski, together with extensive complexes of Jacek
Malczewski’s, Leon Wyczolkowski’s and Jozef Pankiewicz’s creations. From among the
painters of the generation active after World War I, only Zbigniew Pronaszko is widely
represented — by means of over one hundred pictures. Although the Museum collections
encompass works of almost all leading Polish artists of the first half of this century,
a predominance of painters connected with Cracow is clearly visible. In the case of an
earlier phase, from before World War I, this proportion reflects to a high degree the artistic
geography of the period: it was Cracow, then the nucleus of intellectual and cultural life in
Poland, which became also the chief artistic centre in Poland, owing to the reformed
School (later Academy) of Fine Arts, to the existence of the Society of Polish Artists
„Sztuka” (“Art”) and to the possibilities of international contacts. Things were different
in the inter-war period, when some lively artistic circles were formed in Poland, often
considerably different from one another: not sill of them are adequately represented
among the resources of the Cracovian Museum. This feature of the collections results
from the fact that they were formed mainly through the donations by local collectors and
artists linked to Cracow—the purchase policy later corrected those disproportions only to
a limited extent. This “Cracow-oriented” character of the collection is an obstacle towards