|
History
The National Museum in Krakow was established as Poland’s first national art collecting institution in 1879, the nation then stripped of its statehood and of its country by the partitioning powers. Until the end of the First World War, it was the only such large museum accessible to the public on Polish soil, and still today outranks all other such institutions in terms of the number of collections, buildings and permanent exhibitions.
The collecting process was begun with Nero’s Torches, a painting presented to the city of Krakow by its creator, Henryk Siemiradzki, on October 7th, 1879, with the intention of creating a gallery of national art in the Sukiennice (Cloth Hall). Within the next few days, more gifts were received from artists and collectors, and the City Council adopted a special resolution, founding the Museum. The rapid growth of the collection best demonstrated how potent was the need for this type of institution: the bequests included not only entire collections of great value but also buildings, which came to serve as new branches of the Museum.
Initially, the collecting focus was on works of contemporary Polish art, much less on foreign works. This profile evolved in time: at the beginning of the 20th century the holdings were expanded to cover also works of decorative art, numismatics, arms and armour, archaeological and ethnographic objects, historical documents and memorabilia, and art of the Far East. Plans were even devised to open a department of natural history, but after many years of transformations, the Museum withdrew from folk art, natural history and Slavic archaeology, and kept only a small collection of antiquities.
After Poland regained its independence in 1918, the Museum’s storage and exhibition space proved to be insufficient for its holdings, which at that time comprised upwards of one hundred thousand pieces. Fund-raising activities were thus begun with a view to building a new seat for the Museum. The design of what is now known as the Main Building was widely acclaimed as one of the most advanced museum concepts in contemporary Europe. Unfortunately, the outbreak of World War II interrupted the construction works and the building was in use unfinished until 1970, when the project was resumed, though it was not completed until 1990.
In 1950, the National Museum in Krakow absorbed the Princes Czartoryski Museum - along with its Library and Archives - the oldest private museum, opened to the public in 1801 in Puławy, moved, in 1876, from Paris - where it had found itself after the fall of the November Uprising - to Krakow. Since then, the National Museum has been the administrator of the holdings and buildings of the Princes’ Czartoryski Museum, despite the fact that in 1991 these were taken over by a foundation set up by Adam Karol Czartoryski, the heir and representative of the Czartoryski family.
The heart of the Museum is the Main Building on 3 Maja Avenue. In addition to this, the Museum has a further nine branches.
The Sukiennice (Cloth Hall) in the Main Square (Rynek Główny), historically the first seat of the Museum, is home to a permanent exhibition of 19th-century Polish painting and sculpture, on the second floor. At present (2008) this collection is on view at the Royal Castle in Niepołomice, outside Krakow, where it will remain until renovation works on the Sukiennice are complete.
The Emeryk Hutten-Czapski Museum at 10-12 Piłsudskiego Street, the collections and seat of which were the Czapski family’s bequest to the National Museum over a hundred years ago (1903), was the first branch. Today the building complex - together with the adjacent Łoziński House presented by the Łoziński family in 1967 - awaits refurbishment, following which it is intended to accommodate not only the Czapskis’ but also other collections.
The National Museum in Krakow includes monographic museums dedicated to the lives and work of some outstanding Polish artists:
The Jan Matejko House at 41 Floriańska Street, the second oldest branch of the Museum;
The Józef Mehoffer House at 26 Krupnicza Street, with a backyard garden reconstructed, after sixty years, in 2004, originally designed by Mehoffer and acknowledged as Krakow’s most beautiful Modernist garden of the time.
The Stanisław Wyspiański Museum in the Szołayski House, 11 Szczepańska Street, where three exhibition rooms are dedicated to one of the Museum’s great benefactors Feliks “Manggha” Jasieński.
Another museum devoted to the life and work of an artist (in this case a composer) is located outside Krakow: the Karol Szymanowski Museum in the Villa “Atma” in Zakopane.
2006 saw the end of a few-years-long conservation and renovation of the Bishop Erazm Ciołek Palace at 17 Kanonicza Street - since 2007 the location of an exhibition of Polish art spanning the period from the Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century, as well as Orthodox art.
A further integral part of the Museum are two branches housing pieces owned in part by the Princes Czartoryski Foundation and in part by the National Museum: the Princes Czartoryski Museum at 19 św. Jana Street, together with the adjacent Arsenal (accessible from Pijarska Street), and the Princes Czartoryski Library, located in a house built in 1961 by the National Museum in Krakow at 17 św. Marka Street.
The Princes Czartoryski Museum building contains the seat of the Princes Czartoryski Foundation at the National Museum in Krakow.
For ten years, the “Manggha” Museum of Japanese Art and Technology at 26 Konopnickiej Street, was an integral part of the Museum, built from funds raised by the Andrzej Wajda and Krystyna Zachwatowicz Kyoto-Krakow Foundation. In 2005, the Minister of Culture decided to make it an independent cultural institution. On the Minister’s instruction, the collection of Far Eastern art has been transferred to this institution as the Museum’s deposit.
The majority of the above-mentioned branches house permanent exhibitions. At the moment, with the exhibition rooms of the Hutten-Czapski Museum not yet ready, there are fourteen permanent exhibitions on public view. Furthermore, nearly all the branches have departments with holdings accessible for study purposes. These resources have grown considerably to around 780,000 objects (including deposits and library collections) divided into twenty-one departments. The Museum also offers three libraries, two of which are statutory parts of the National Library Resources System, and one is listed among the “scientific libraries” established by a Resolution of the Council of Ministers.
The resources of each department are discussed in more detail below, so let me just say at this point that the National Museum in Krakow has an excellent collection of Polish painting and sculpture of the 15th and 16th centuries, a magnificent collection of works of the Young Poland movement, a rich collection of prints, decorative art pieces, textiles and arms and armour. Its numismatic objects and art of the Far East are unrivalled in Poland and beyond. Adding class and splendour to these unique holdings is the Czartoryskis’ world-renowned collection of decorative art, arms and armour, and prints and paintings, among them the most valuable painting in any Polish collection, Leonardo’s Lady with Ermine and Landscape with Good Samaritan by Rembrandt.
The priceless heritage with which the Museum has been entrusted is not only stored, studied and preserved in ten in-house conservator’s workshops, but also promoted at permanent galleries and special exhibitions in Poland and abroad, and through extensive publishing activity. Education has a very special role in the Museum’s activity: its significance cannot be overestimated. The Museum’s offer of educational programmes addressed to children, youth and adult groups are described below.
A member of four societies and two foundations, the Museum also organises numerous concerts, meetings and lectures.
The National Museum in Krakow was originally founded as a municipal institution so as to evade control by the occupying government in Vienna. In 1950, then as a state museum, it came under the authority of the Ministry of Culture. It is financed both by the Ministry and from its own proceeds, which the institution is now able to generate despite being a non-profit organisation by statute. At the moment it has a staff of 635, including 261 in curatorial areas, and a relatively large internal security force of 87 armed officers who provide safeguarding services in all of the buildings (all figures as at the end of 2007).
The first statute of the Museum was conferred in 1881. The current, ninth statute of 2001 was the first in which the Museum’s mission was laid down:
“The mission of the Museum is to bear testimony to national and human values by promoting the art of the world and of Poland, especially of the Krakow milieu, as well as by curatorial activities embracing collections and works of scientific, historical and artistic merit which came into being as a result of the beliefs of those who shared a sense of belonging to or respect for Polish culture, regardless of their place of residence, nationality or religion”.
In fulfilling this mission, the Museum protects the national heritage that has been put in its care. In doing so, the Museum applies the latest technologies, though not without due respect for tradition. Hopefully, with this approach, the Museum will enjoy a prominent place in and play a major part in a united Europe. 2009Zofia Gołubiew Director of the National Museum in Krakow
|
