In recent years, Kraków’s cultural map has been expanded to include by works by two authors who made their mark in Polish art during the second half of the 20th century.
Since October 2016, the Nowa Huta Cultural Centre has been home to the acclaimed Zdzisław Beksiński Gallery. Alongside a permanent collection of fifty paintings, mainly from the 1980s, it regularly presents the artist’s photographs and drawings. In January, the Centre also opened the Jerzy Duda-Gracz Gallery and its repertoire is now full for the next two decades. First, the 200-square metre space presented almost 100 works by the author of Motifs, Dances, Dialogues and Polish Landscapes, as well as the cycle of Provincial and Communal Paintings started in 1986. The selection prepared for the inauguration included some of his best-known compositions portraying the dull, grey everyday existence in 1970s and 1980s Poland, alongside less popular cycles influenced by music by Frederic Chopin and “Jurassic” landscapes inspired by the Kraków and Częstochowa Upland. All are owned by the artist’s wife Wilma and their daughter, the acclaimed theatre director Agata Duda-Gracz.
But how did it happen that artworks by the author who was born in Częstochowa and is most commonly associated with Silesia and art schools in Katowice have ended up in Nowa Huta? “There was talk of opening a Jerzy Duda-Gracz Gallery in Kraków as early as just a few years after his passing in 2004,” recalls curator Joanna Gościej-Lewińska, director of the Nowa Huta Cultural Centre Gallery and arranger of both exhibitions. “It took a long time to find the right location, but finally in 2011 we came up with the idea to house the exhibition at the Baroque St. Benedict’s Inn in Podgórze. However, family representatives weren’t able to come to an agreement with city authorities, and the matter was postponed again. […] There were two significant events before the foundation of the gallery, both involving the Nowa Huta Cultural Centre: a review exhibition of Jerzy Duda-Gracz’s artworks in October 2015, and a launch of the Zdzisław Beksiński Gallery at the Centre a year later. Why were they important? Well, the exhibition accompanied by the launch of an album and an open discussion hosted by Tadeusz Nyczek, acclaimed art critic and scholar of Duda-Gracz’s works, were possible thanks to the Nowa Huta Cultural Centre’s close ties with the artist’s family. This built deep trust between the concerned parties, which was essential before any long-term decisions could be made. The Nowa Huta Cultural Centre took the opportunity to showcase itself as a space open to art and the ambitious challenges it brings, as well as being up to it on the technological level.”
In 2018, the Mayor of the City of Kraków Prof. Jacek Majchrowski and Agata Duda-Gracz signed an agreement, following which the family collection went under the care of the Nowa Huta Cultural Centre. The collection includes around 300 artworks from different periods. Over the course of the coming 20 years, they will be gradually shown as the latest instalments of the permanent exhibition. “It was always important to me that he’d be here, because the city didn’t like him which made him take umbrage. And for me it has become the most important and beloved place where I live,” the director explains her motives for locating the collection of her father’s artworks in Kraków.
The success of the Zdzisław Beksiński Gallery, noted by the curator, was the result of ongoing private efforts to create a Zdzisław Beksiński Museum in Poland. The collection of Anna and Piotr Dmochowski is the largest non-public assortment of the artist’s works, including 100 paintings, 100 drawings and 100 art photos. Piotr Dmochowski runs a gallery in Paris; between 1984 and 1995 he was Beksiński’s art dealer and a great populariser of his works abroad Their relationship (temporarily severed under rather awkward circumstances) was depicted in Jan P. Matuszyński’s acclaimed film The Last Family – you can find out more from Dmochowski’s writings covering his decades-long correspondence with the artist (available from www.beksinski.dmochowskigallery.net). In 2004, months before Beksiński’s tragic death, the works amassed by the couple were shown at exhibitions in Częstochowa and Kraków. Ten years later, 50 paintings (mostly the best-known, fantastical works from the 1980s), 100 drawings and 100 photos were deposited at the Nowa Huta Cultural Gallery. The Centre put them on display in its exhibition space, making the collector’s dream of creating a permanent presentation of his collection come true after many years. Enhanced by temporary exhibitions of drawings and photos, the permanent exhibition has been attracted crowds from all over Kraków ever since.
“Two incredibly talented, original, hard-working, famous and… very different artists. They knew and valued one another, and spent time together, even though their personalities couldn’t have been more different. They were united in their steadfast minds, intellectual independence, staying true to their values and something which may now seem anachronistic: their total dedication to precision in their work. They were both absolute masters of their craft!” stresses Joanna Gościej-Lewińska.
It is impossible to be impassive when faced with their frequently controversial artworks: some are enchanted and delight by them, while others are repulsed almost to the point of hatred… The question is, will we accept or reject the artistic visions they left behind? Let’s hope both galleries open their doors once again soon so we can explore for ourselves! (Dorota Dziunikowska, “Karnet” monthly)
Text based on materials of the Nowa Huta Cultural Centre.
