“Happy Hour": Young Poland

The Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola invites you to an unusual exhibition presenting selected aspects of one of the most interesting and important artistic phenomena – Young Poland. In years 1890-1914 fine arts, like literature and music, experienced their “happy hour”. For not only did a variety of trends come to the fore at the same time – Art Nouveau and Symbolism, “Intensivism” and Proto-Expressionism, Japonism – but, above all, many artistic individualities appeared and many programmatic works were created at the highest artistic level, with no analogues in European art of the time. And although artistic life took place intensively in various places, a few of them are particularly important: the artist’s studio, the exhibition, the Academy of Fine Arts, the salon, the café, Jasieński’s museum and the mountain hut. We present both paintings by Olga Boznanska illustrating her relationship with Alphonse Karpinski and the work of one of the greatest individuals of the time: Witold Wojtkiewicz, as well as works by Jacek Malczewski, Julian Falat, Wojciech Weiss, Jan Stanislawski and his students, Leon Wyczółkowski, Tadeusz Makowski, Xawery Dunikowski, Konstanty Laszczka and Stanisław Wyspiański.