The Contemporary Art Department features works created between 1914 and the present day.
Among the works from the interwar period, an important collection comprises works by members of the Formists group, including Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz – Witkacy, Leon Chwistek, Tytus Czyżewski, Zbigniew Pronaszka and Konrad Winkler. Section II also possesses a reasonably representative collection of Polish Colourism – both pre-war (works by, among others, Jan Cybis, Hanna Rudzka-Cybis and Zygmunt Waliszewski) and post-war (Artur Nacht-Samborski and Józef MNK Czapski).
The collection of contemporary Polish painting (post-1945) provides a reasonably comprehensive overview of developments in Polish art during the second half of the 20th century. Artists associated with the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts and the Kraków art scene are particularly well represented. The collection includes works by artists associated with the Kraków Group: Tadeusz Kantor, Jonasz Stern, Maria Jarema, Jerzy Nowosielski, Jerzy Bereś and Adam Marczyński. A striking addition is a unique group of monumental paintings and sculptures linked to the 1975 exhibition ‘To See and to Understand’.
The Department’s collection features a significant body of work by artists of the MNK Arsenal generation – Andrzej Wróblewski, Jan Tarasin, Jan Szancenbach, Andrzej Strumiłło and Jan Lebenstein. Members of the Wprost group are well represented: Leszek Sobocki, Maciej Bieniasz, Zbylut Grzywacz and Jacek Waltoś. A significant place is occupied by a collection of works by artists now classified as part of the “Generation of the 80s”.
A significant part of the collection is devoted to the Kraków School of Graphic Art, which includes not only prints on paper but also plates, amongst which are Jerzy Panek’s woodcuts. Other artists represented in the collection include Mieczysław Wejman, Andrzej Pietsch, Zbigniew Lutomski and Ryszard Otręba.
In 2000–2001, the modern art collection was expanded to include works by the Ładnie Group, and in subsequent years, following the opening of the permanent Gallery of 20th-Century Polish Art, it has been further expanded to include representative examples of contemporary art.
Head: Magdalena Czubińska mczubinska@mnk.pl
