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The Gallery of Polish Painting after the year 1945 is the first
permanent display of contemporary painting in the post-war history of the
Silesian Museum in Katowice. The works hereby presented constitute a small part
of the vast museum collection gathered in Poland after World War II,
comprising 585 items of artists representing different generations and
artistic backgrounds. Its history goes back to the restitution of the
museum in 1984. The acquisition of art created in earlier years was a daunting
task - thus, its collection is modestly represented. The later years, especially
the 1980s and also the 90s have much wider representation. The socio-political
changes that came after the year 1989, economic transformation and the ensuing
financial restrictions applied to cultural centres caused a serious slowdown in
expanding the collection over many years to come.
The idea behind the
display was to continue and complete the existing Gallery of Polish Painting
1800-1945 (its core collection started in the 1930s) with the aim to document
and highlight the most significant phenomena in the history of art after 1945.
It encompasses matter painting, geometric abstraction and emotional painting
(Informel), Tashisme, metaphor painting, Neo-expressionism and Neo-figuration.
Among them there are works created by well-known authors as well as by those
less recognised but definitely worthy of public attention and interest. It is by
no means certain that the collection includes works of the most prominent
artists who had the greatest impact on the shape and development of art at
that time ( among others Andrzej Wróblewski, Tadeusz Kantor, Jerzy Nowosielski,
Władysław Hasior, Edward Dwurnik, Jerzy Duda-Gracz).
The choices of works
depended also on practical conditions like exhibition space
available in the Museum and the character of the existing collection. The
display, though enclosed in the symbolic time brackets, is not strictly
chronological and its main intention is to exemplify certain styles and trends
in post-war art, which did not necessarily followed one after another
respectively to the changing times and aesthetic values over the
years.
The exhibition comes also as a harbinger of the future more
extensive Gallery of the Polish Painting after 1945, which will soon find its
new seat within the stately exhibition walls of the new building of the Silesian
Museum in Katowice.
Curator of exhibition: Joanna Szeligowska-Farquhar
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| Gallery of Polish Painting |
Gallery of Polish Painting
after 1945 >>>
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| | | Theatre of Many Cultures |
‘This series of meetings is addressed to those interested
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