The aim of the exhibition is to present the first cross-sectional panorama of the Polish art of the years 1918-1939. The exhibition shall encompass the most outstanding works belonging to the canon of the Polish art of this period, as well as less known, though important for various reasons, items that render the period character and its visual atmosphere perfectly. Thus it will be a historical exhibition that intentionally resigns, however, from getting the public acquainted with the arcana of consecutive trends and groups – very numerous at that time. Instead, the exhibition will present main artistic currents in their relation to historic and social context. A narration of the exhibition will be organized around key motives from 1920s and 1930s, such as: town, machine, new art (avant-garde), crisis, sport, film, etc. A spectator will be lead through twelve sections of diversified atmosphere, organized mainly in a chronological order.

Ludomir Sleńdziński (1889 – 1980)
The buttons players (The Nippers), 1928
Oil, canvas; 134 x 134 cm
The National Museum in Warsaw,  inv. no. MPW 2981

Along with predominant paintings and sculptures, the exhibition will also present, though to a less extent, decorative arts (furniture, ceramics, kilims, glass, etc.) that illustrate Art Deco stylistics, design of the co-operative Ład (Order) or that of the avant-garde circles. We will also show photomontages and posters, which were as decisive to the style of this period as the high art. In the hall next to the exhibition we will show avant-garde interwar films and at the Museum cinema – feature films. The exhibition shall comprise more than 300 items, loaned from more than 20 museums and private owners, and will be exposed in the whole exposition space of the Museum. A lot of works will be presented for the first time. The exhibition will be accompanied with a richly illustrated catalogue, containing problem essays and coloured reproductions of the majority of items (330 pages, 300 illustrations). The catalogue shall constitute an important compendium of information on this period also once the exhibition will be over.

Mika Mikun (1886 – 1974)
The Woman with the Apple, 1926
Ceramics, coloured glaze;  height. 78,5 cm
The National Museum in Warsaw, inv.no. Rz.W.663

The title of the exhibition is an invitation for the public to go on time trip, with the possibility of taking diverse directions. We hope that our spectator will experience novelty that can arise from meeting works of art created in not such a remote time, yet still not fully recognized and thus remaining a rarely visited “land”.

The interwar period was a time of dynamics and huge creative energy as well as tensions and struggles between different opposing factions and groups. However, almost everybody, both participants and later observers of these only twenty tumultuous years, underlined a huge potential and colourfulness of the artistic life, and also a blossom of many art fields, sometimes paying off also in the post war time.  

Władysław Strzemiński (1893  – 1952)
The Joblesses, 28.10.1934
Tempera, cardboard; 19,5 x 25,5 cm
Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi, inv. no. MS/SN/M/126

We think that historic distance which separates us now from the interwar period, the progress that has been made in the field of research on this period of time, as well as an increasingly wide access to documents and memoirs published without censorship will help us to assess in a reliable and truthful way the Polish interwar period.  

Curator of the exhibition: Katarzyna Nowakowska-Sito

translated by Anna Kiełczewska