Roots and Sky. The Polish Chapter in the Collection of the Kyiv National Art Gallery

From May 15th, audiences in Poland will, for the first time, have the opportunity to view works from the collection of the Kyiv National Art Gallery, one of Ukraine’s most significant museums.

Established in 1922, the museum holds a rich and diverse collection of approximately fourteen thousand objects, primarily paintings dating from the 13th century to the present day. The core of the Gallery’s holdings is formed by works originating from private Kyiv collections that were nationalised during the Soviet era. Among the most valuable and best-known of these are the collections of the Tereshchenko and Khanenko families, as well as that of Oskar Hansen.

A significant part of the Kyiv National Art Gallery’s collection is formed by works of Polish artists from the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Although relatively modest in scale, it is of considerable artistic and historical interest. In Poland, however, it has thus far remained largely unknown to the wider public.

The team of the National Museum in Kraków, invited by the Kyiv museum to collaborate on the project, worked with its partners to select works by nine Polish painters. Representing different artistic periods - from early Romanticism to the interwar era - the selected works are strikingly diverse in both stylistic and iconographic terms.

Presented in the Malarnia Hall of the Gallery of 19th-Century Polish Art, the exhibition will offer Polish audiences an opportunity to encounter works previously unseen in Poland by the following artists: Aleksander Orłowski (1777–1832), Henryk Siemiradzki (1843–1902), Wilhelm Kotarbiński (1848–1921), Stefan Bakałowicz (1857–1947), Jan Ciągliński (1858–1913), Leon Wyczółkowski (1852–1936), Leon Kowalski (1870–1937), Stanisław Żukowski (1873–1944), and Marian Stroński (1892–1977).

Curators - Dr Beata Studziżba-Kubalska, Galyna Alaverdova
Coordinators - Gabriela Kuleczko, Katarzyna Stolarz
Exhibition design - Anna Popławska-Szilder