Department III: Prints, Drawings and Watercolours is one of the largest, oldest, and in terms of iconography one of the most important museum collections of its kind in Poland. It was set up on the basis of collections taken from departments established by the first museum statute of 1883 (Drawings and Watercolours, Prints and Reproductions, Architectural Sections and Plans, and Memorabilia of Adam Mickiewicz).
Until World War II the Department's collections consisted mainly of donations, with some purchases. In fact the core of its collection acquired during the first decades of the Museum's existence consisted almost entirely of a series of valuable endowments. Some benefactors donated their entire personal collection or a substantial part of it, for example Ludwik Skarbek Michałowski, Emeryk Hutten-Czapski, Władysław Bartynowski, Władysław Pobóg Górski, Stanisław Ursyn-Rusiecki, Edward Goldstein, Adolf Sternschuss, Feliks Jasieński and Leon Kostka. Another important source of contributions were bequests made by artists or their heirs. In this way the Museum acquired works by Stanisław Wyspiański, Tomasz Pryliński, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Józef Simmler, Jan Stanisławski, Leon Kowalski, Zbigniew Pronaszko, Olga Boznańska, Henryk Siemiradzki and the recently deceased Jerzy Panek.
From the 1890s the prints and drawings were displayed in the Sukiennice in a room of the so called 'Langierówka' building. It was also around this time that the Museum began to treat the collections of graphics and drawings as a single entity. After the Museum of Count Emeryk Hutten Czapski was opened to the public (which was taken over by the National Museum in Cracow in 1903), the collection was moved to the Czapski palace on Wolska St. (now Piłsudskiego St.). There it was used to stock the Prints Room until the mid-1990s when it was transferred to the Main Building of the Museum. Department III achieved its present composition after reorganisation in the 1950s when paper-based works from other departments were added to it and maps, photographs, and autograph albums were transferred to specialist departments, and a subsequent reorganisation in the 1990s.
Initially the collections were mainly used by students of Krakow's School of Fine Arts. However, because of their great iconographic value, they also became a highly-valued resource for publishers of illustrated works. Since the beginning of its existence, therefore, the collection has not only been used by art lovers and researchers, but has also played a role in wider cultural circles. In the years following World War II the collections were used and studied even more intensively. As (incomplete) reports show, during research carried out in the post-war period the total number of works made available was greater than the number contained in the entire collection.
Almost from the beginning of the Museum's existence the drawings and prints played an important role in permanent and temporary exhibitions both in the Sukiennice and later in the Czapski Branch. One of the first 'independent' graphic exhibitions was the display of portraits of the founders of the May 3rd Constitution organised in the Langierówka in 1891. Over the years the number of paper-based works used in permanent exhibitions gradually decreased, while their presence in temporary exhibitions increased. Currently between a few hundred and around a thousand works from the Department's collections are used each year in museum exhibitions (both our own and in other institutions). In the post-war period the department mounted around a hundred exhibitions of its own.
Due to the large number of artefacts in the Department's various sections and groups, a complete catalogue of the collection has not yet been issued. The most comprehensive existing publication is the multi-volume collective work Catalogue of Architectural Drawings from the Collections of the National Museum in Cracow published in 1975-1986. Work is now in progress on catalogues for particular parts of the collection. A partial record of the Department's collection can be found in the numerous catalogues for temporary exhibitions organised by Department III or the recently published album Polish Art Nouveau Posters from the Collections of the National Museum in Cracow.
The Department possesses almost 160,000 works, mainly paper-based (predominantly the work of Polish artists active in the 19th century). The collection is divided into seven sections: Prints, Drawings, Architectural Plans, Posters, Miniatures, Blocks and Plates, and Photomontage. Prints, the largest section (about 100,000 objects), consists of 14 groups divided up according to criteria based on iconography, historical status or authorship, traditions of assembling collections, and the need to make the works available for research.
In the PRINTS section (almost 100,000 objects) the largest collection (also the largest of its kind in Poland) is Portraits, which numbers around 18,000 graphic works. These are mostly used for academic and publishing research and are arranged according to the people depicted. The oldest objects date from the 16th century, though most are from the 19th century. Particularly noteworthy is the famous collection of Emeryk Hutten-Czapski with its royal portraits and images of other historical figures (mainly Polish) produced by famous engravers, both Polish and foreign.
Equally important for researchers is the Views collection numbering around 8,500 objects, mostly architectural views. These are arranged by city and geographical names and mostly consist of historical images of Polish cities and lands. Of great value are the 17th century European townscapes (e.g. the view of Krakow by Mateusz Merian or the prints produced by Braun and Hogenberg). The cities most often depicted are Krakow, Warsaw, Lwów and Vilnius.
Another large collection is Early Foreign Graphic Art (around 9,000 objects), which are arranged by artist and are dominated by works from the 19th century. Particularly interesting are pieces by such artists as Francesco Bartolozzi, Stefano della Bella, Jacques Callot, Daniel Chodowiecki, Francisco Goya and Adrian van Ostade.
A particularly impressive collection is Early Polish Graphic Art (over 2,700 objects), which includes large print collections, for example those of Jeremiasz Falck, Kajetan Wincenty Kielisiński, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Jan Piotr Norblin, Antoni Oleszczyński, Aleksander Orłowski or Michał Płoński.
The more recent collection 20th and 21st Century Polish Graphic Art (over 7,000 works) was mostly bequeathed to the museum by Feliks Jasieński, and therefore contains numerous works by artists of the Young Poland movement (e.g. Józef Pankiewicz and Leon Wyczółkowski).
This collection also includes a fine set of works by artists from the third quarter of the 20th century associated with Krakow's artistic milieu.
An equally valuable part of the 20th and 21st Century Foreign Graphic Art collection (almost 4,000 works) are the prints donated by Feliks Jasieński, especially the large group of French graphics which includes works by renowned artists, most notably Pierre Bonnard, Eugène Carrière, Maurice Denis, Paul Gauguin, Odilon Redon, Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Edouard Vuillard. Other countries are represented by equally well-known artists e.g. James Ensor, Max Klinger, Käthe Kollwitz, Max Liebermann, Alfons Mucha, Emil Orlik and James Whistler. A later though also valuable group are the graphics purchased after the International Prints Biennial in Krakow.
Other collections of prints also include valuable iconographic material, for example the collection of Polish and Foreign Woodcut Illustrations, arranged according to individual engravers. These are often used for thematic research.
There is also a separate group named Saints (around 4,800 objects) which includes excellent iconographic and comparative material for the saints, the Virgin Mary, and Christ arranged according to the saints' names and dedications. It is one of the largest specialist collections of its kind in Poland and includes works from the 17th to 19th centuries. As well as numerous prints by Polish artists there are interesting prints from early foreign schools, for example Dutch, German, Italian and French.
The Costumes group comprises a considerable number of objects (almost 3,800), mainly prints from nineteenth century French and German fashion journals. An interesting feature of this collection are the actor figures in costumes and scenes from theatre productions from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.
Another area of iconography is represented by the Armies group (1,300 prints) which provides a broad overview of armour and uniforms from the late 18th and 19th centuries.
The separate Polish and Foreign Albums collection is a large group (a total of 23,000 works) consisting of a set of utility works which mainly date from the 19th century including various iconographic materials.
The DRAWINGS section is a large and extremely important part of the collection (around 25,000 items / 39,000 objects including sketchbook works). It consists of predominantly Polish works created using various drawing techniques, as well as pastels and watercolours. The collection is arranged by artist and features works dating from the 17th century up to the present day, though most are from the 19th century, including the work of such artists as Jan Piotr Norblin, Franciszek Smuglewicz, Aleksander Orłowski, Jan Kamzetzer, Zygmunt Vogel, Michał Stachowicz, Aleksander Orłowski, Józef Brodowski, Piotr Michałowski, Henryk Rodakowski, Artur Grottger, Juliusz Kossak, Stanisław Chlebowski, Henryk Siemiradzki, Stanisław Witkiewicz, Aleksander and Maksymilian Gierymski, Józef Chełmoński, Leon Wyczółkowski, Julian Fałat, Józef Mehoffer, Olga Boznańska, Józef Pankiewicz, Jan Stanisławski, Wojciech Weiss, Jacek Malczewski, Teodor Axentowicz, Witold Wojtkiewicz, Leon Chwistek, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz and Stanisław Noakowski. The section also possesses over 1,100 works by Stanisław Wyspiański which were given to the Wyspiański Museum in the 1980s, as well as a large collection of study drawings by various artists. It also has a small separate collection devoted to contempory fine art.
The works in the PLANS section (around 11,000) were also mainly executed using drawing techniques. This collection includes architectural drawings involving church and secular buildings, mainly in southern Poland and particularly in Krakow. The drawings are associated with building, conversion or reconstruction designs and involve either entire buildings, architectural details or interiors. These are works by famous Polish architects such as Zygmunt Hendel, Tomasz Pryliński and Józef Gałęzowski. The section is organised according to a topographical system i.e. the works are arranged according to place names.
MINIATURES is a separate section. Arranged by artist it includes over 1,100 items, predominantly portrait representations from the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century. The most valuable part of the collection are the foreign miniatures from the English, French, German, Austrian and Italian schools. Of the Polish miniatures especially noteworthy are works by Wincenty Lesseur, Stanisław Marszałkiewicz and Józef Sonntag. The Miniatures section also includes illustrations and initials from illuminated manuscripts.
The BLOCKS AND PLATES section which contains over 1,600 graphic matrices of various kinds is a particularly interesting collection. Especially eye-catching are the plates by Joachim Lelewel, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Leon Kowalski, Józef Kosmulski, and Leon Wyczółkowski, and the almost complete collection of woodcut boards and plates by Jerzy Panek.
The smallest and newest section of Department III is the PHOTOMONTAGE collection which contains 25 objects from the interwar period (extraordinary works by Kazimierz Podsadecki and Jan Maria Brzeski) and the 20th century (works by Zbylut Grzywacz and Teresa Rudowicz).
Krystyna Kulig-Janarek
