National Museum in Gdask: Director's Choice

(Paperback)

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Description

The National Museum in Gdansk, one of the oldest museums in Poland, was established by the merger of the Gdansk City Museum (est. 1870) and the Handicraft Museum (est. 1881). Its core is the collection of Jacob Kabrun (17591814), comprising several thousand paintings, drawings and prints by European masters from the end of the 15th to the beginning of the 19th century.
The Museum is spread across a number of sites: the main building, a late Gothic post-Franciscan monastery, houses the Department of Historical Art; the Abbots Palace in Gdansk-Oliwa houses the Department of Modern Art; the Department of Ethnography is located in the Abbots Granary; the Green Gate in the Long Market is where temporary exhibitions are held; the National Anthem Museum is housed in a manor in Bedomin which once belonged to the anthems author Jzef Wybicki, while the Polish Gentry Museum is in a historic manor in Waplewo Wielkie. The rich collection of the Gdansk Photography Gallery is part of the Department of Modern Art, although it has its own seat in Gdansks Main Town.

Author Bio

Art historian Jacek Friedrich has been the Director of the National Muzeum in Gdansk since 2020. He has lectured and published mostly on the history of art and architecture in the 19th and 20th centuries. He has curated several exhibitions in that field as well.