The Kraków Iconography Workshop was founded in 1964 by Professor Jerzy Banach with the aim of collecting and academically cataloguing the historical iconography of our city, that is, its views dating from before 1918. Professor Wanda Mossakowska led the work on organising the Workshop, establishing its operating procedures and the methodology for documenting the collections. The heads of the Studio were: Jerzy Banach from 1964 to 1991, Anna Zeńczak from 1992 to 1997, and Iwona Kęder from 1998 to 2019.
To date, the Studio has catalogued – in the form of visual documentation and a collection of information – over 12,500 views of Kraków, including both general views and those of its parts, squares, streets, individual buildings and their interiors.
All views are catalogued, regardless of the technique used, i.e. paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, etc., and the primary criterion for their evaluation is the cognitive value of the view, i.e. the quantity and reliability of information about the city’s built environment that can be gleaned from it. Based on this material, an iconographic catalogue is being compiled – the first of its kind in Poland – an iconographic catalogue which, starting from the view and supplementing the iconographic record with information obtained through bibliographic and archival research, illustrates the transformations undergone by the city’s appearance, which – particularly in detail – are often known only from iconographic sources. In this sense, iconography perfectly complements historical knowledge.
Currently, the Studio is compiling a catalogue of views of Śródmieście, the part of the city once enclosed by defensive walls and now surrounded by Planty Park. Between 1998 and 2022, eight volumes of the Catalogue were published; volumes one to three were edited by Jerzy Banach, whilst volume five and subsequent volumes were edited by Iwona Kęder (volumes 1–4 were produced in collaboration with TAiWPN Universitas, whilst subsequent volumes were published by the National Museum). Subsequent volumes are currently being prepared for publication, developed as part of a grant from the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities. The series will conclude with the eleventh volume, scheduled for publication in 2025.
The Studio also produces other publications, both academic and popular, devoted to the iconography, history and art of Kraków. Alongside a whole range of articles published in specialist journals, there are also several books, namely: J. Banach’s Dawne widoki Krakowa (1967 and 1982) and Kraków malowniczy. On albums of views of Kraków in the nineteenth century (1980), W. Mossakowska and A. Zeńczak, Kraków in Old Photographs (1984), I. Podgórnik-Kęder, Romanesque in Kraków (1985),
W. Komorowski and A. Sudacka, The Main Square in Kraków (2008), I. Kęder, Kraków. Images (2009), or W. Komorowski, Medieval Houses of Kraków (2014).
The Studio’s collections are made available for academic, research, conservation and educational purposes.
Head of Department: Dr Waldemar Komorowski email: wkomorowski@mnk.pl
