On 18 June, the grand opening of the exhibition The Brotherhood of St Luke: Kazimierz Dolny – USA – Kazimierz Dolny was held at the Vistula Museum, with the attendees including Deputy Prime Minister / Minister of Culture and National Heritage Prof. Piotr Gliński and Director of the Polish History Museum Robert Kostro. The PHM is the exhibition’s partner.

The exhibition features a series of seven panoramic paintings by a group of artist who formed the Brotherhood of St Luke prepared as the core element of the Polish Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.

“This is a very special exhibition as after 85 years the paintings of the Brotherhood’s members are returning to Kazimierz Dolny, where they were created. In 1938 – over a period of six months – eleven artists under the direction of Professor Tadeusz Pruszkowski painted them together according to the instructions of the scientific committee chaired by Professor Oskar Halecki. I very much wanted to ensure that one of the first presentations of the paintings recovered after 83 years should take place here”, noted the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Prof. Piotr Gliński during the ceremony.

The works depict the most important events in the history of Polish statehood, beginning with the meeting of Bolesław I the Brave and Emperor Otto III at the tomb of St Adalbert, through the establishment of the Union of Lublin to the adoption of the Constitution of 3 May 1791. The works were created at Tadeusz Pruszkowski’s villa in Kazimierz Dolny.

“The history of the series itself is extraordinary, it is an important piece of Polish history. The paintings travelled to the United States in 1939, to return to free Poland only now. It is a fantastic story that will become part of the exhibition at the Polish History Museum”, said PHM Director Robert Kostro.

The artistic group of the Brotherhood of St Luke was one of the most important in the interwar period. It was founded in 1925 in Kazimierz Dolny on the Vistula on the initiative of Professor Tadeusz Pruszkowski and his students from the Warsaw School of Fine Arts, reactivated in 1923.

The series of seven monumental paintings were created in an entirely unique way: the artists painted them together in order to unify the style. At one point in time, two to three painters were working on a given painting, after which they would change and apply corrections to the other works. Each painting is therefore signed by eleven names of the members of the Brotherhood.

As the exhibition The Brotherhood of St Luke: Kazimierz Dolny – USA – Kazimierz Dolny at the Vistula Museum is complemented by individual works by the group’s members, visitors have a unique opportunity to compare the series prepared for the New York exhibition with the creative output of the Brothers of St Luke.

The seven historical paintings by the members of the Brotherhood of St Luke presented in Kazimierz Dolny are now in the collection of the Polish History Museum in Warsaw, which expresses its gratitude to Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY and Stefan de Ropp, former Commissioner General of the Polish Pavilion of the New York World’s Fair, for their stewardship and careful preservation of these works of art over the course of many years.

Curator: Dorota Seweryn-Puchalska

Partners: Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Polish History Museum

Sponsor: PGE Foundation

Honorary patronage: Marshall of the Lublin Voivodship Jarosław Stawiarski

Date and venue: 19 June–6 August 2023, daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Vistula Museum in Kazimierz Dolny, Temporary Exhibition Gallery, 19, ul. Rynek (entrance as for the Goldsmith Art Museum)

Admission:

Regular ticket: PLN 30

Concessionary ticket: PLN 20

Family ticket: PLN 60

Photographs: PHM/Emilia Szczęsna, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Vistula Museum in Kazimierz Dolny

Online ticket purchase: http://bitly.pl/nxMPE