Fund for the Museum from the Ministry of Culture’s project ‘Expansion of the collection of Polish paintings from Munich’

We would like to inform you that the Regional Museum in Suwałki has been awarded a grant of 80,000.00 PLN for a project entitled: ‘Expansion of the collection of Polish paintings from Munich’. The total cost of the project is: 103,020.00 PLN.

The project involves the purchase of three paintings by Polish artists who, in the final decades of the 19th century and the early 20th century, were associated with the international artistic community in Munich. All the works were created in Munich. They are:

Wacław Szymanowski, *Contemplation*, 1884, signed and dated, oil on canvas, 81 x 62 cm. This work is of particular importance to the Suwałki collection due to the family ties between Szymanowski and the Wierusz-Kowalski family. The artist who painted *Contemplation* devoted himself primarily to painting in Munich. It was there that he produced his greatest and most magnificent paintings. After moving to Paris in 1895, he focused mainly on sculpture. No less significant to the museum’s collection is Wacław Koniuszko’s painting, *In Kazimierz, Kraków*, before 1885, signed, oil on canvas, 56 x 69 cm. The artist spent several creative years in Munich; in 1885 he returned to his native Kraków, where his career was cut short by illness. In Munich, he painted cityscapes and scenes from the lives of Kraków’s poor. The most recent acquisition is a painting by Jan Klępiński, who belonged to the youngest generation of painters associated with Munich. *Pre-evening Landscape*, 1897, signed, dated, oil on canvas, 43 x 53 cm, was created during his stay in the Bavarian capital, from where the artist frequently travelled to Italy. It is an example of the painter’s work, which focuses on the formal qualities of the artwork rather than its ideological content.

Co-funded by the ‘Expansion of Museum Collections’ programme – an in-house programme of the National Institute of Museums – 2025, funded from the budget of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. Project title: ‘Expansion of the collection of Polish paintings from Munich’.