POLISH ART 20TH C.

The display of selected works from the Museum's collection, counted as among the richest in Poland, is a survey of most important trends in 20thcentury art, beginning from the inter-war period (for instance works by Tadeusz Makowski, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Władysław Strzemiński, Henryk Stażewski) to the late 20thcentury.

Amongst works that emerged in the post-war time especially representative are those which exemplify the expressive idiom influenced by great human themes. Life, death, transience are primal subjects of works by such artists as Waldemar Cwenarski, Alina Szapocznikow, Jan Lebenstein, Tadeusz Kantor, Jerzy Tchórzewski.

Jan Lebenstein, Carpathien, 1965

A trend somewhat akin to Surrealism is present in unreal landscapes by Zbigniew Makowski and pictures by Kazimierz Mikulski, as well as in canvases by Jerzy Nowosielski who was inspired by icon-painting.

Maria Jarema, Henryk Stażewski and Jerzy Rosołowicz executed works which rely for their effects on optical principles and rules of geometry. The arrangement of space in a form of environment is represented in compositions by Karol Broniatowski, Jerzy Kalina and Józef Szajna.

An outstanding place at the exhibition is held by Magdalena Abakanowicz whose output is shown in a separate room. The Museum's collection of her works counts as one of the largest in Europe.

Jan Jaromir Aleksiun, Izabella Gustowska and Natalia Lach-Lachowicz may be mentioned amongst exponents of the generation of artists whose work is a continuation of the figurative version of Expressionism.

The exhibition is supplemented by a show of ceramics and glass, a choice from the copious accumulation, providing a representative cross-section throughout seventy years or so. It allows to trace the evolution of both branches, beginning from functional forms (Julia Kotarbińska, Rudolf Krzywiec), via sculptural, spatial, made out-of-doors forms (Krystyna Cybińska, Mieczysław Zdanowicz), to small, decorative forms inspired by the surrounding world (Irena Lipska-Zworska, Anna Malicka).