CONSTRUCTION OF THE JÓZEF CZAPSKI PAVILION
CONSTRUCTION OF THE JÓZEF CZAPSKI PAVILION
In the years 2014-2016 the National Museum in Krakow is to build a Józef Czapski Pavilion within the complex of the Emeryk Hutten-Czapski Memorial Museum, a branch of the NMK.
The new building will be devoted to the grandson of the creator of the most valuable numismatic collection in Poland, the eminent Polish intellectual, writer, painter and art critic Józef Czapski. The new space, over 600 square metres in size, will feature a recreation of the artist’s room at Maisons-Laffitte, a temporary exhibitions room, a reading room, and a café.
The contract for supplementary finance for the project was signed on 7 May 2014 at the Royal Castle at Wawel during a press conference with Dr Monika Smoleń, Under-secretary of State at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and the directors of the Krakow cultural institutions that have received funds from the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism.
The idea for the construction of a new exhibition pavilion, to house items including the collections and mementoes of Józef Czapski, is connected with his testament, executed in 1994, in which he posthumously donated to the MNK his archives, mementoes and library, as well as the papers of his sister Maria (a writer) and the extended Czapski family.
The pavilion will house a 1:1 scale reconstruction of Czapski’s room, relocated, together with his mementoes and furnishing, from his home (and the seat of the editorial board of the cultural periodical Kultura) in the Paris suburb of Maisons-Laffitte. Scholars will gain access to his archive, amassed over 50 years, including his famous Dzienniki [Diaries], atelier materials, and correspondence. The pavilion will also be home to a permanent exhibition of Czapski’s painting, and there will be a temporary exhibitions room that will display paintings by members of the “Paris Committee”, to which Czapski belonged from the 1920s. There will also be a biographical room devoted to the tragic fortunes of the painter and other Poles in the East after 1939. The café will serve as a venue for lectures on domestic and émigré painting and Polish literature after World War II, and for other events connected with leading figures in Polish literature and politics.
The project will also include conservation of Czapski’s library and Diaries (in all some 700 volumes), as well as furniture and other of his personal effects. Part of his library and some of the Diaries (approx. 50,000 pages) will be digitalized and released online.
The opening of the pavilion is scheduled for the spring of 2016.
Project Programme Council
Zofia Gołubiew
Izabella Godlewska de Aranda
Wojciech Karpiński
dr Piotr Kłoczowski
prof. Stanisław Rodziński
prof. Krystyna Zachwatowicz-Wajda
Andrzej Wajda
Henryk Woźniakowski
The project received financing as part of the programme “Conservation and revitalization of cultural heritage” under the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism for the years 2009-2014.
Total financing received: PLN 15,504,832.
Support granted from resources donated by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, and from Polish state budget funds.
The contract for supplementary finance for the project was signed on 7 May 2014 at the Royal Castle at Wawel during a press conference with Dr Monika Smoleń, Under-secretary of State at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and the directors of the Krakow cultural institutions that have received funds from the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism.
The idea for the construction of a new exhibition pavilion, to house items including the collections and mementoes of Józef Czapski, is connected with his testament, executed in 1994, in which he posthumously donated to the MNK his archives, mementoes and library, as well as the papers of his sister Maria (a writer) and the extended Czapski family.
The pavilion will house a 1:1 scale reconstruction of Czapski’s room, relocated, together with his mementoes and furnishing, from his home (and the seat of the editorial board of the cultural periodical Kultura) in the Paris suburb of Maisons-Laffitte. Scholars will gain access to his archive, amassed over 50 years, including his famous Dzienniki [Diaries], atelier materials, and correspondence. The pavilion will also be home to a permanent exhibition of Czapski’s painting, and there will be a temporary exhibitions room that will display paintings by members of the “Paris Committee”, to which Czapski belonged from the 1920s. There will also be a biographical room devoted to the tragic fortunes of the painter and other Poles in the East after 1939. The café will serve as a venue for lectures on domestic and émigré painting and Polish literature after World War II, and for other events connected with leading figures in Polish literature and politics.
The project will also include conservation of Czapski’s library and Diaries (in all some 700 volumes), as well as furniture and other of his personal effects. Part of his library and some of the Diaries (approx. 50,000 pages) will be digitalized and released online.
The opening of the pavilion is scheduled for the spring of 2016.
Project Programme Council
Zofia Gołubiew
Izabella Godlewska de Aranda
Wojciech Karpiński
dr Piotr Kłoczowski
prof. Stanisław Rodziński
prof. Krystyna Zachwatowicz-Wajda
Andrzej Wajda
Henryk Woźniakowski
The project received financing as part of the programme “Conservation and revitalization of cultural heritage” under the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism for the years 2009-2014.
Total financing received: PLN 15,504,832.
Support granted from resources donated by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, and from Polish state budget funds.
