OUR HERITAGE. 150 YEARS SINCE THE FOUNDING OF THE WOODCARVING SCHOOL IN ZAKOPANE

Our Heritage. 150 Years since the Founding of the Woodcarving School in Zakopane

From a village workshop to one of the most important institutions shaping Polish art, crafts, design and architecture, the exhibition “Nasza rzecz” (“Our Heritage”), prepared to mark the 150th anniversary of the Woodcarving School in Zakopane, is a story of success and sacrifice.

Following its history, we will see both well-known works and objects appearing for the first time outside museum storerooms and private collections. One of the discoveries will be an extraordinary altar made by the school's students in 1893 to a design by the institution's first director, Franciszek Neužil.

The institution's triumph at the international exhibition in Paris in 1925 is one of the key chapters of this story. Its protagonists will be the crafts, art and applied forms presented then in the world capital of art, including a replica of the famous Christmas Altar by Jan Szczepkowski, regarded as an icon of Polish Art Deco.

Works by Jan Skotnica, a Czech sculptor and teacher at the Zakopane school, as well as pieces from private collections and by Jan Nalborczyk and Jan Zapotoczny that are unknown to the wider public, are further colourful pages of the Zakopane saga.

The postwar years, together with the builders of the Zakopane legend of “Plastyk”, prove especially important. In particular, the way Antoni Kenar, an outstanding pedagogue, artist and mentor of many creators, together with Halina Micińska-Kenarowa, built an environment based on freedom, respect and courage, launching the living community of the “kenarowcy” that endures to this day.

Original furniture-sculptures, ceramics designed by Kenar, wooden toys, textiles and utilitarian objects that earned recognition in Poland and abroad, examples of Zakopane design from the second half of the 20th century, will in turn take us to the heart of modern design.

“Nasza rzecz” is a story about all those for whom the school was something more.

Curator: dr hab. Katarzyna Chrudzimska-Uhera

EXHIBITION PARTNERS: Państwowe Liceum Sztuk Plastycznych im. Antoniego Kenara w Zakopanem, Zespół Szkół Budowlanych im. Dra Władysława Matlakowskiego w Zakopanem

HONORARY PATRONAGE: Mayor of the City of Zakopane

MEDIA PARTNERS: Radio 357, Tygodnik Podhalański, 24tp.pl

The exhibition can be seen from 20 June to 3 January 2027 at Galeria Sztuki w Willi Oksza, ul. Zamoyskiego 25.