Welcome to the exhibition What’s a Woman Got to Do with a Paintbrush?! Polish Women Artists from 1850 to 1950. The title of the exhibition is a quote from Kazimierz Sichulski, an artist in the Young Poland movement, directed at the painter Olga Boznańska. Tinged with irritation, the ambiguous phrase aptly captures the main idea of the exhibition: to showcase the richness and diversity of art created by women, which developed over a hundred years in often unfavourable conditions.

The exhibition’s visual motif is Allegory of Art by Maria Chmielowska — a statuesque, realistic figure of a female artist holding an artist’s tools in her hand. We invite you to the first part of the exhibition, located on the right-hand side when standing with your back to the stairs. Please begin your visit by heading to the right.

Until around the mid-19th century, Polish women engaged in art primarily as amateurs. This was due to prevailing social norms and the lack of access to a comprehensive artistic education, which was only nominally included as part of the upbringing and proper etiquette for young ladies. Some changes in this approach were brought about by 18th-century Enlightenment ideas. Professional women artists began to emerge within the circle of King Stanisław August Poniatowski’s patronage.

Among them, Anna Rajecka—who spent most of her life in Paris and was a royal scholarship recipient—stood out as a remarkable individual. Her pastel portraits, such as Portrait of a Lady with a Child, characterized by a sentimental Rococo style, were well received by critics and affluent clients.

The second quarter of the 19th century witnessed the artistic activity of Henryka Beyer. She specialized in still life, drawing inspiration from 17th-century Dutch paintings. Her elaborate floral compositions were highly valued for their exceptional craftsmanship, earning her numerous awards and commissions. A significant milestone in Beyer’s cultural contribution to Warsaw was the founding of the first painting school for women in Poland in 1824.

The work of both artists reflects the status of women’s art during their respective eras. The subjects of their work were limited to portraiture and still life—genres considered lower in the academic hierarchy of themes.

Irena Serda-Zbigniewiczowa, a graduate of the Kraków school, painted portraits, landscapes, religious scenes, and still life using oils, pastels, and charcoal. Before you is a self-portrait of a woman artist with a bold gaze, set against the backdrop of her studio, with artistic tools—palette and brushes—in hand. Her right hand symbolizes action and agency. In the background, we see the artist’s own works: portraits and themes that were commonly explored by women painters of the time.

The 19th century was a time of rapid transformation, marked by efforts toward gender equality and access to education. In the field of art, from the 1870s onward, pioneering women began to pave the way for Polish women to pursue artistic careers, even though they were limited to studying in private studios and schools. The highest quality instruction was offered by the Warsaw Drawing Class, led by Wojciech Gerson, and the Art Department of the Higher Courses for Women in Kraków, founded by Adrian Baraniecki. For further education, young aspiring artists most often traveled to Paris, and less frequently to Munich, Vienna, or St. Petersburg. Choosing such a path required courage, strength, and determination.

Self-portraits reveal how these artists viewed and

defined themselves. The way they chose to portray themselves shaped how they would be perceived and remembered. Some presented themselves as professional artists, forgoing traditional symbols of femininity, while others still navigated the tension between being an artist and being a woman

Zofia Szymanowska-Lenartowicz was one of the Polish painters for whom art became her livelihood. She painted portraits, genre scenes, and religious compositions. She gained recognition and popularity for her copies of works by Old Masters. Her portraits—including the self-portrait presented here—are marked by solid technique, confident drawing and composition, and skilful use of light and shadow. In this work, the artist revealed her feminine nature, portraying herself as a delicate woman with an intense gaze. Her focused and serious expression conveys a strong character, agency, and determination in pursuing her goals.

Aniela Pająkówna was an artist who became involved with Stanisław Przybyszewski—a writer, poet, playwright, and scandalous figure of the Young Poland movement. Their romance resulted in the birth of a daughter, Stanisława Przybyszewska. The moral ostracism and social and professional exclusion that followed from having an illegitimate child, along with financial difficulties, ultimately ruined the artist’s career.

Her beautiful Self-Portrait with Daughter presents her primarily as a mother—devoted, empathetic, and concerned for her daughter’s future. In the composition, the artist places her daughter in the foreground, not herself. This is no coincidence: although single motherhood brought her hardship, her daughter remained the centre of her life. Pająkówna combined her role as a mother with her artistic pursuits.

The exclusion of women from access to a formal, professional artistic education significantly shaped the nature of their work. Limitations in technical training often prevented them from executing complex genre scenes or works with historical, mythological, or religious themes—genres that were then considered the highest measure of talent and artistic success.

Among the subjects explored by the first generation of women artists, portraiture held the most important place. This respected and demanding genre provided a platform to showcase their skills, gain recognition, and attract commissions. The portraits they left behind were highly diverse: idealized and official depictions of people of various ages, social classes, and nationalities, some in Orientalist style, others breaking away from conventional representation, focusing instead on the individuality of the sitter, often imbued with intimacy or deeper meaning. These works touched on various stages of life and aspects of femininity.

Anna Bilińska was the first Polish woman artist to achieve fame in the most important artistic centre of the time—Paris. Her Self-Portrait brought her international success and acclaim. Gifted with exceptional talent and driven by remarkable determination and a strong sense of artistic calling, she was also the first Polish woman to receive a professional academic-level education in art. Bilińska’s oeuvre includes portraits, still life, genre scenes, and landscapes, executed in oil, watercolour, and pastel. Her works align with the European realist movement. She had an excellent command of painting fundamentals, as seen in her numerous model studies, notable for their synthetic approach to form and confident, fluid brushwork. Her compositions as in the Portrait of a Woman in Mourning – are characterized by natural ease and, above all, her ability to capture the particular mood and psychological expression of her sitters, portrayed with simplicity and without idealization

Maria Nostitz-Wasilkowska was a graduate of Dr. Baraniecki’s courses and a student of Ilya Repin at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. In Russia, she gained considerable popularity as a portraitist of the aristocracy. She specialized in elegant female portraiture, favouring the pastel technique, in which she excelled. Her work developed in the spirit of modernism, with clear influences of Impressionism and Art Nouveau.

Her artworks are characterized by a loose technique, a decorative approach to clothing and background, an emphasis on feminine beauty, and a harmonious use of colour. The portraits are marked by precise drawing, vibrant colours, and bold strokes of brush or pastel. In Poland, she painted actresses and dancers. Before you is the Portrait of Felicja Kochówna, a delicate dancer, fully aware of her beauty and femininity.

Olga Boznańska was the most prominent Polish painter working in Munich, Paris, and Kraków. She was widely awarded and is the most recognizable among Polish women artists. While she painted flowers, still life, and interiors, it was portraiture that brought her the greatest fame, earning her the title of “painter of the human soul.”

Her work is known for its intimate, atmospheric quality, with a remarkable sensitivity to colour forming the foundation of her paintings. Their surfaces appear misty, fluid, and devoid of sharp lines, defined shapes, or strong colour contrasts. Boznańska captured her inner vision rather than the tangible world.

The painting presented here was created in this very spirit. The portrait of the three sisters by Boznańska likely depicts, from left to right: painter Alicja Halicka, her sister Maria Rosenblatt, and their cousin. Interestingly, Halicka never mentioned the portrait in her memoirs and referred to Boznańska with a hint of sarcasm.

Leokadia Łempicka primarily painted portraits, most often featuring children as her models. She specialised in miniature paintings on ivory and in pastels.

Let us take a closer look at this painting. At the centre of the composition, set against a backdrop of a flower-filled meadow, is a young, innocent girl gazing directly at us with a dreamy expression. She tilts her head and brushes her hair aside. In this work, the artist touches on the sensual theme of a child’s transformation into a woman. The painting, rendered in soft pastel tones, radiates a sense of calm.

Tola Certowicz was one of the first Polish women sculptors to gain recognition and acclaim in a field that was, at the time, overwhelmingly dominated by men. She founded one of the first private art schools dedicated to women. Her work focused primarily on portrait sculpture—busts and medallions—as well as religious-themed pieces in white marble, and allegorical or symbolic compositions.

In her time, she was a prominent figure, and her sculptural work is distinguished not only by professional skill but also by a deep sensitivity and individualised approach to her subjects and themes.

The full-figure male nude presented in this exhibition is a rare and unique work among Polish women artists of the era. This bronze relief depicts a young ephebe in a state of contemplation or mourning. It was awarded at the Paris Salon in 1888.

Mela Muter was another exceptionally talented painter who, moving within elite artistic and intellectual circles, portrayed some of the most important figures of her era.

Her Portrait of Leopold Staff presents the pale, restless face of the young poet emerging from a dark background. He appears with youthful stubble and furrowed brows. His eyes are filled with worry—or perhaps rebellion. Behind the poet is the image of a girl’s mask with closed eyes.

The mask refers to a well-known Parisian symbol of the time, linked to the story of a beautiful young woman who, heartbroken, threw herself into the Seine. Her tragic fate stirred sympathy, sorrow, and affection among Parisians and became the subject of many works of art—not only in France. The features of the mask in Muter’s painting closely resemble the artist herself.

Maria Dulębianka was an extraordinary and eccentric figure—both in her style of dress and in her behaviour. A portrait and landscape painter, feminist, and social activist, she was also the first Polish woman to run for parliamentary office. Deeply sensitive to human suffering, she often explored such themes in her genre scenes. Her paintings were marked by a strong ability to capture realistic facial features and the inner character of her subjects.

The painting After the Verdict (Imprisoned), composed in a narrow vertical format, depicts a young woman in prison, her hands bound with heavy shackles. The artist’s genuine interest in the human condition is evident in the model’s subtle, haunting gaze. The light focused on her face also reflects softly from her pale clothing, painted with broad, expressive brushstrokes. In this work, Dulębianka demonstrates technical mastery and painterly clarity, combined with a profound psychological depth. The composition highlights the artist’s awareness that violence is a manifestation of power and control over others.

Motherhood was a theme rarely explored by women artists. Few of them were mothers; some experienced the loss of a child, while others deliberately chose not to have children, dedicating themselves fully to their creative work. As a result, when female artists did address motherhood, they often presented it in a deeply personal and unconventional way.

Mela Muter returned to the theme of motherhood many times, as she herself had not experienced love in her own childhood and, later in life, endured the loss of her only son. Her paintings form a kind of monument to the figure of the mother—one imbued with suffering, doubt, sorrow, loneliness, exhaustion, and sacrifice.

Anna Bilińska offered a completely different perspective on motherhood. Although she never experienced motherhood herself, she depicted it in a scene filled with love, calm, and patience.

A realistically portrayed young woman and her small child occupy the central part of the painting. Dressed in traditional Hutsul garments, they appear as one. The mother’s face, as she gazes at her child, expresses love, peace, joy, fulfilment, closeness, and the warmth of their bond.

This portrayal of motherhood evokes the Renaissance Madonna with child paintings—radiating tenderness, kindness, and serenity.

Women artists often painted children out of a natural inclination toward motherhood but, increasingly, they began to see children as individuals in their own right—deserving the same attention and depth as adult models. Sometimes they highlighted children’s joy and carefree nature, their fatigue from posing, or alternatively, their seriousness, sorrow, or hardship.

The 19th century was marked by rapid and unprecedented technological progress, which, in practice, led to a massive demand for cheap labour—including child labour. While working as a newspaper seller was far less grueling than working in a factory or mine, it was still far from easy. A young newspaper boy had to be available, reliable, and punctual. Selling papers in all weather, balancing work with school, and exposure to unpredictable street life posed real challenges for a child.

Laura Siemieńska was one of the few artists attuned to the hardships faced by children. While the newspaper boy in her painting appears confident, his dark eyes clearly convey a sense of contemplation and gravity. Siemieńska’s painting is not only a compelling portrait but also a powerful reflection of the social realities of the 19th century.

Maria Podlewska was a respected portraitist of Kraków’s intellectual elite. Her works, created in a realist style, are characterized by compositional simplicity, intimacy, and a restrained, dark colour palette.

The Insurgent’s Mother is one of several portraits of the artist’s own mother, Józefa Podlewska, the wife of Karol Podlewski, who was sentenced to twenty years of exile in Siberia for collaborating with a November Uprising insurgent.

The portrait presented here is a powerful depiction of old age. It shows an elderly woman in a black dress, seated in a wicker chair, engaged in needlework. Captured from the knees up, she appears calm and composed—a woman shaped by life’s trials, gazing out with quiet dignity.

Karolina Grabowska was a sculptor and painter from Łęczna. During her time in France, she frequently visited Brittany, where she painted numerous portraits of women in traditional folk costumes, as well as interiors of their homes and the surrounding landscapes.

Presented here is a portrait of an elderly Breton woman inside a tavern. In Grabowska’s work, old age takes on a very different form. The woman sits at a table, gazing ahead with a tired, absent look. She holds a pipe in her mouth and a glass of beer in her hand. The painting conveys the passage of time, sadness, and melancholy.

Male portraiture was an equally popular subject among women artists. They painted their fathers, husbands, fiancés, and figures from the artistic world—representing various nationalities and ethnic types. Some of these works were proper academic portraits, while others delved deeper as insightful psychological studies.

Maria Gażycz painted her teacher, Wojciech Gerson. The portrait of this distinguished educator serves as a tribute from the artist to her mentor. Gerson played a vital role in the development of artistic education and cultural life in Warsaw—particularly for women—as the founder of the Warsaw Drawing Class.

Let us also turn our attention to the sculpted bust of Adrian Baraniecki, founder of the Higher Courses for Women in Kraków. This tribute to the master was created by Antonina Rożniatowska.

By reproducing and reinterpreting biblical themes, images of Christ, and portrayals of saints—as well as by creating genre scenes rooted in religious life—women artists posed profound questions about human spirituality and the nature of faith. At the same time, they offered a glimpse into their personal beliefs.

The reflections expressed through their paintings and sculptures echo a universal, timeless human desire: to understand what lies beyond us, to seek the meaning of our existence, to convey a sense of the infinite, and to foster a deeper connection with God, a dialogue with others, and with oneself.

We invite you now to enter the realm of the sacred.

Still life with flowers was a frequent subject in the work of 19th-century women artists. According to prevailing beliefs of the time, this charming theme was thought to best suit the qualities and sensibilities of a woman’s nature. Both amateurs and trained artists drew and painted a wide variety of floral compositions.

In the second half of the 19th century, perhaps in an effort to lend greater seriousness to their art, professional women artists approached the subject less frequently. Nonetheless, it was elevated by the works of painters such as Anna Bilińska, Maria Gażycz, Maria Czajkowska, Maria Dulębianka, and Olga Boznańska. Their atmospheric depictions of blooming or wilting roses, poppies, and nasturtiums—devoid of sentimentality—captivate with their refined form.

In the newly reborn Polish state after 1918, fundamental changes took place regarding the status of women. With a regained independence and the 1921 constitution, women were granted equal civil rights and access to full education—including in the arts. This led to a flourishing of women’s activity in many areas, including art. Women began to make their mark in fields such as printmaking and sculpture. Their artistic presence was evident both within Poland and in Paris, the latter continuing to attract many Polish female artists.

A symbol of this new era is Wiktoria Goryńska’s print Self-Portrait with Telephone. Goryńska is one of the most outstanding and original graphic artists of the Art Deco period. Her modern hairstyle, fashionable sporty outfit, and confident posture convey a sense of strength and agency. In this work, the artist does not focus on emotion but rather on her stance toward life. She is portrayed as a modern, emancipated woman—focused on her own growth and independence.

Wanda Komorowska primarily created prints using metal techniques. Common themes in her work included flowers, still lifes, landscapes, figures of children, women, the elderly, and genre scenes. Her graphic art is characterised by a quiet, melancholic, and contemplative atmosphere. She produced several self-portraits at different stages of her life and was an excellent observer of reality — in each of her self-depictions, the artist revealed aspects of her personality. The print presented here was one of the last works she completed, created shortly before her death.

During the interwar period, most women artists continued earlier representational traditions. What changed, however, was the expansion of their choice of models to include a broader range of ethnic types and social groups. A key feature of this era was the artists’ emphasis on individuality and on conveying national, social, or professional identity.

Artists of the 1920s and 1930s increasingly turned toward narrative representation. Their focus shifted to the emotional layer of the artwork, aiming to evoke specific feelings in the viewer. They drew stylistically from the modern visual language of Expressionism and Symbolism.

Zofia Stryjeńska was one of the most outstanding Polish artists of the interwar period—a widely recognized painter, graphic artist, illustrator, set designer, and designer of textiles, posters, and toys. She was closely connected with both Warsaw and Zakopane.

The Portrait of a Young Woman with a Cigarette is a vivid reflection of its era. Stryjeńska depicts a confident young woman gazing boldly at the viewer, dressed in a black hat, dress, and gloves. She holds a lit cigarette—a symbol of equality and freedom. The painting is executed in a decorative style, with flat colour areas outlined by strong contours.

The work of many women artists was deeply connected with a fascination for femininity. They boldly explored subjects that had previously been considered taboo, often expressing them through direct, emotionally charged eroticism.

Take a moment to observe the diversity of works gathered in this section. The theme of the nude is represented by numerous pieces by Małgorzata Łada-Maciągowa. Her work is marked by creative individualism—she gave equal importance to both form and content, with a keen interest in colour and light.

She built her compositions using delicate, subtle lines, shaping them into a painterly texture. Maciągowa’s interwar-era art earned her the title of a “poet of the delicate line.” She mastered the art of intimate painting themes, particularly portraits and nudes, with elegance and refinement.

Zofia Baltarowicz discovered her passion for sculpture at the age of five. With determination, she pursued recognition as a sculptor, studying in Lviv, Vienna, and Kraków—where she was the only woman among eighty male students and became the first female student admitted to the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts.

Presented here is a study of a smiling woman’s face—a work created with great expressiveness. The artist conveys her vision in a deeply individual manner. Smiling II is distinguished by its compact form and boldly cut planes, emphasising both strength and emotion.

Katarzyna Kobro was the most important Polish avant-garde sculptor of the 20th century and the wife of artist Władysław Strzemiński. She revolutionized the concept of sculpture by integrating it inseparably with architecture.

The presented Nude series marked a distinct and personal exploration for the artist—created purely for play and pleasure, detached from the realities of the outside world. This approach stood in contrast to her own artistic philosophy, which emphasised functionality and spatial integration in sculpture.

The works from 1948, compared to those she created in the 1920s, exhibit greater expressiveness, monumentality, dynamism, and sensuality.

The work of Irena Weissowa was deeply rooted in the traditions of the Young Poland movement. Her paintings are quiet, contemplative, and often spiritual. When children entered her life, Irena balanced the roles of mother and artist. Their charming presence became a recurring subject in her art. She viewed them through the warmth of maternal love.

Weissowa painted her lively children quickly and sketchily—capturing their grace with a refined sense of colour and bold, confident brushstrokes.

In the painting Hanusia with Nanny, little Hanusia, dressed in a navy-blue dress with a white collar, is intently focused on a picture book lying in front of her. The tiny girl, absorbed in the illustrations, doesn’t look at her mother and seems unaware that she’s being observed and painted.

Sara Lipska, a prominent figure among women artists of her time, came from a wealthy Hasidic family. As a wife, mother, and promising sculptor, painter, and theatrical costume designer, she fell in love with Professor Xawery Dunikowski, with whom she had a daughter.

Although talented in painting and sculpture, it was as a designer that Lipska truly excelled. She became a fashion innovator and created interior designs for the modern hair salon of her friend, the famous stylist Antoni Cierplikowski.

Lipska maintained deep respect for Dunikowski throughout her life, referring to him as her master. The sculpture presented in this exhibition stands as a lasting testament to the artist’s enduring admiration and fascination with her teacher.

Alicja Halicka was a painter and illustrator closely connected with the elite avant-garde intellectual and artistic circles of Paris. She also worked in textile and wallpaper design, and created costume and set designs for the productions of the Ballets Russes.

In the early phase of her career, her painting was strongly influenced by the aesthetics of Cubism. During this period, she produced portraits and still life paintings characterised by synthesised, geometric forms and a subdued color palette dominated by browns and greys.

The work presented here is a portrait study of Leopold Zborowski—Polish poet and renowned art dealer—well known throughout the avant-garde circles of early 20th-century Paris.

In the work of women artists active during the 1920s and 1930s, we find numerous depictions of various aspects of community life in both urban and rural settings: hunting scenes, sleigh rides, markets, tavern gatherings, folk dances, and religious rituals. Realistic portrayals of everyday life were replaced by impressionistic depictions, often infused with a humorous tone. These selected slices of life became colourful compositions resembling children’s storybook illustrations or fairy tale imagery.

Teresa Roszkowska was one of the most vivid personalities in Polish cultural life. Eccentrically dressed, with her signature deep tan and an uncompromising approach to art, she stood out for her unique style and valued independence and sincerity in expression. Roszkowska painted themes drawn from folklore, circus scenes, cityscapes, and suburban festivities. Her works were praised for their sense of humour and a distinctive atmosphere of grotesque whimsy.

Her painting Little Theatre reflects this playful, imaginative spirit, turning a moment of everyday joy into a lively and colourful visual tale.

In the 1920s, physical activity became widely fashionable. Sports themes were frequently explored by women artists—many of whom, like printmaker Wiktoria Goryńska, actively participated in various disciplines themselves.

Janina Konarska-Słonimska, who specialized in woodcut prints, gained recognition as a prize winner in Olympic art competitions. Her sports-themed works often feature bird’s-eye views. This perspective allowed her not only to depict the competition itself—be it a national tournament, a football match, or a tennis game—but also to capture the atmosphere of the sporting event, including the energy of the crowd. Portraying spectators within the context of sports-themed art was still uncommon at the time.

In her prints, Konarska frequently included elements of nature, such as leaning trees surrounding football stadiums and tennis courts, blending the human activity of sport with the surrounding environment in a harmonious and visually striking way.

Olga Niewska created her first sculptures in a realistic style, and later in the spirit of modernism. She became fascinated with the human body and the mechanics of movement, focusing on simplified stylisation. She introduced this new style in her sports sculptures, creating bronze figurines and trophies intended as prizes for winners in sports competitions. She often sculpted athletically built men. The sculpture “Boxer” presents the figure of a hunched athlete preparing to throw a punch. The sculpture has a simple, almost raw form, but it carries tremendous expressive power. Fascinated by the strength and beauty of the human body, she sculpted runners, archers, hockey players, shooters, swimmers, discus throwers, and athletes. She was also the creator of exceptionally sensual depictions of both female and male nudes.

Female artists following modern trends moved away from painting representations faithful to nature. In their formal explorations, which aimed at defining individual expression, they drew on Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Expressionism, and Surrealism. According to accepted formal ways of seeing, the depicted world underwent subjective interpretation, synthesis, geometrisation, and distortion. A characteristic feature of the works of a significant number of female artists from the interwar period is the boldness and grandeur in the use of colour, which gains expressive independence. It is within this movement that the painting Breakfast Still Life by Irena Reno was created.

Michalina Krzyżanowska began her painting career only after the death of her husband, which was relatively late, at the age of thirty-nine. In Krzyżanowska’s work, landscapes inspired by her travels across the country and the scenery of Volhynia dominate almost entirely. In some of her pieces, one can find similarities to the landscapes of her husband, especially in terms of colour palette and free painting technique. However, the artist quickly developed her own style, characterised by expressiveness, bold compositions, and a sense of space that wonderfully captures the colours of nature, light effects, and various atmospheric phenomena.

Magdalena Gross’s fascination with animals stemmed from the opening of the Warsaw Zoological Garden. Most of her works, which were small in size and which depicted Polish or exotic birds, are characterised by a great simplicity of form while simultaneously capturing the essence of the depicted animal in a masterful way. The artist needed touch, the experience of material, and sensation in order to create. She was enchanted by the diversity of animal postures, characters, and behaviours. Her works are defined by simplicity, static composition, and a clear, suggestive silhouette. She portrayed the animal in a concise, synthetic manner, flawlessly highlighting the traits of the species, variety, gender, and age.

Helena Schrammówna was a painter, researcher, and populariser of folk art. Her works, inspired by non-professional art, drew from both art history, including medieval and Byzantine painting, as well as folk traditions, rituals, and spirituality. She delved into local traditions and folk beliefs. Over time, she also changed her technique: she moved away from oil painting in favour of tempera and painting on glass. Non-professional art gained importance in her eyes and became as significant as professional art.

The diverse and often distant formal concepts employed by female painters, graphic artists, and sculptors are united by an emphasis on the expressive qualities of the representations, boldness in undertaking artistic experiments, and a tendency to introduce new solutions. Among many possible sources of inspiration, folk art held a particularly prominent place. Zofia Stryjeńska played a leading role in this trend.

Her colourful, energy-filled, joyful work, brimming with imagination and creative freedom, based on Slavic myths, ancient legends, and folk traditions, became synonymous with the art of the reborn nation. Until the late 1930s, she was the unquestioned “princess of Polish art.” The poetics of fantasy and fairytale were also present in the works of other female artists. Formal inspirations came from medieval art, miniatures, Russian icons, naive art, as well as surrealist solutions and dreamlike imagination.

Since the 1920s, the careers of those whose path to emancipation was linked to involvement with the avant-garde circles became a frequent phenomenon. The influence of new trends from Western Europe is visible in the works of Polish female artists. Their compositions did not strictly adhere to the principles of form construction; instead, women used selected elements, adapting them to their sensitivity.

In the spirit of the avant-garde, artists such as Katarzyna Kobro, Maria Jarema, Teresa Żarnower, and Maria Nicz-Borowiakowa created works. Nicz-Borowiakowa’s early creations, with their Art Nouveau style, drew from the experiences of Young Poland. The further direction of her development was influenced by the expressionist work of the Poznań-based Bunt group and the journal “Zdrój,” both of which were important for the entire avant-garde movement. The artist was one of the most significant representatives of Polish constructivism. At the end of 1924, she began creating her first abstract compositions, in which simple geometric forms were enriched with varied textures, and their colour palette was carefully developed. The work presented here comes from this period of her artistic development.

The Second World War was a tremendous tragedy. The established rules, norms, and relationships were destroyed in an unprecedented way. The pre-war legacy of many female artists was lost, which meant the loss of part of their personal biography, and perhaps even the foundation of their own identity. Among the women imprisoned in concentration camps were artists, and as a result of mass executions and liquidation actions, many talented Jewish painters and graphic artists perished. Those who managed to emigrate did not always know how to navigate the new reality. Amid the ruins of the former world that had collapsed before their eyes, returning to art as a form of life seemed especially difficult. The experience of war and destruction cast a deep shadow over the achievements of the surviving artists and those who began their careers after 1945. In the post-war reality, women’s creativity gradually revived and took on very diverse forms. The works of Teresa Żarnower are characterised by great expression, reflecting the experience of war, as well as emerging new trends in art: abstract expressionism.

Thank you for your attention, and we encourage you to carefully observe the exhibition.