In 1986, the artist’s house at 26 Krupnicza Street in Kraków – together with a large part of its furnishings, the garden and the entire plot of land – was donated by MNK Mehoffer’s heirs to the National Museum in Kraków, with a view to transforming it into a house dedicated to the artist’s life. The building itself is a 19th-century listed building; it was built in 1854 (and entered in the register of listed buildings in 1966). It is associated with several prominent figures from Kraków – including MNK Wyspiański (who was born here on 15 January 1869) and Józef Szujski. MNK Mehoffer purchased it in 1932. The Mehoffer family donated the furniture and everyday objects that had formed part of the house’s furnishings to the Museum, whilst the artist’s works were transferred to the National Museum in Kraków in the 1980s and 90s of the 20th century, under deposit agreements. This made it possible to reconstruct the former interior décor of the MNK Mehoffer house, documented, amongst other things, in photographs from interwar periodicals and images from private collections. MNK Mehoffer’s house was opened to the public in January 1996. In May 2004, the adjoining garden—recreated in the style of the pre-war garden designed by the artist—was opened to the public. The centrepiece of the Mehoffer Collection is a body of around 350 works by the artist, spanning all phases of his career (from around 1890, right up to the final years before 1946), with his works on paper forming the dominant group: designs for monumental painting – stained-glass windows and polychromes – as well as drawings, painterly sketches and studies. The collection is further enriched by several dozen of the artist’s oil paintings, his stained-glass works and prints. The collection is complemented by family mementoes belonging to Jadwiga and Józef MNK Mehoffer (including 19th-century portraits of their ancestors), objects of artistic craftsmanship that formed part of the furnishings and décor of their home, painting accessories, as well as collectable artefacts, such as a collection of antique textiles, a collection of Japanese woodblock prints and other Japanese artefacts (collected by Jadwiga Janakowska, the artist’s future wife, in Paris in the 1890s), three Young Poland-era sculptures, and examples of 18th- and 19th-century woodcarving. It should be added that the artist’s heirs also donated to the Museum a historic book collection comprising approximately 3,000 volumes, which forms part of the MNK Library’s holdings and is, for the most part, available for consultation, 30 comprising old prints, 19th-century manuscripts, and a rich selection of publications in the field of Polish and European belles-lettres and specialist literature from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Head: Dr Beata Studziżba-Kubalska bstudzizba@mnk.pl
