Anna Krzymańska. Medals and Plaques

From 25 September 2026 to 10 January 2027, the Museum of Applied Arts in the Royal Castle in Poznań will present an exhibition of the work of the distinguished Poznań sculptor Anna Krzymańska in the field of small relief.

Small relief includes both medals and plaques, as well as “reliefs”, a term the artist herself used and treated as a separate category, standing on the border between plaque and sculpture, characterised by relative flatness, yet clearly aspiring to monumentality.

The exhibited objects span all periods of her work and show the full range of artistic styles she practised over her several decades of activity.

Anna Krzymańska, 1973, photo by Z. Ratajczak

Anna Krzymańska, 1970s, photo by Teresa Fitzner

The exhibition will feature nearly 270 works. These will be plaques and medals cast in bronze, plaster models, as well as drawn designs for medals that were never realised.

In addition, the display will be enhanced by five of the artist's freestanding sculptures, held in the collection of the Gallery of Contemporary Art of the National Museum in Poznań.

This is the first such large exhibition of Anna Krzymańska's medals and plaques.

“Lady of Polish Sculpture”

Anna Krzymańska (1932–2021), a native of Poznań, is often called the “lady of Polish sculpture”. While her monumental sculptures are fairly well known and are what she is most widely associated with, her plaques and medals have so far not received the attention they deserve from art historians, numismatists or collectors.

The opportunity to correct this neglect came when the National Museum in Poznań acquired a rich collection of small relief works directly from the artist's studio. The research and exhibition material donated by her family complemented the existing collection and prompted the publication of a separate volume of the MNP collection catalogue. Access to new archival materials that had not previously been used in scholarship allowed for a broader presentation of this distinguished artist, who deserves a place in the pantheon of the greatest Polish medallists.

Anna Krzymańska, “Time”, MNP GN H 1598

Anna Krzymańska, “Maria Dąbrowska”, MNP GN H 1595

Anna Krzymańska, “Ocean”, MNP GN H 1577

Between Monument and Small Form

At the start of her career, she regarded small forms as “lures” meant to attract clients interested in monumental sculpture. Although large works were her first, never-fading love, few public commissions came her way. Worse still, those that were approved for realisation were often subjected to bureaucratic “reworking”, which drastically interfered with the author's original concept.

This experience led Krzymańska to treat small sculptures as a fully personal space. She made them purely for her own pleasure, without regard to prevailing fashions, trends or external pressures. This natural inclination toward the intimate form opened for her a direct path into the world of medallic art.

Anna Krzymańska at a playground in Słupia Wielka, 1970

With one of her outdoor sculptures, 1960s

Anna Krzymańska, 1970s, photo by J. Nowakowski

The Birth of a Medallist

The early 1970s brought a creative explosion. Although she continued to make sculptures and ceramic reliefs, her attention shifted to medallic art. In 1971 Anna Krzymańska created the iconic Violinist, inspired by her father's amateur playing. Until the end of the 1980s, she produced a dozen or so works a year.

The exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts is accompanied by a publication containing all of the artist's works in the field of small relief held by the National Museum in Poznań, forming a further volume of the catalogue of our collections.

Anna Krzymańska, “Violinist”, 1971, MNP GN E 8330

• 27.09 (Sunday), 13:00 – Curator-led tour, Dr Witold Garbaczewski
• 4.10 (Sunday), 13:00 – „Stories Carved in Bronze. On the Medals and Plaques of Anna Krzymańska”, expert lecture, moderated by Marta Piekarska
• 11.10 (Sunday), 12:00…