SECESSION

The Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola invites you to a meeting with a unique phenomenon in European art, Art Nouveau. And although Art Nouveau was relatively short-lived, less than twenty-five years, it left its mark in almost all fields of art. At the turn of the nineteenth century, it was omnipresent, both in the urban fabric and in the visual language of contemporary artists. Art Nouveau was used for architecture and home decor, arts and crafts and fashion, painting, sculpture and printmaking.

Above all, Art Nouveau sought novelty, and was interested in new construction of space in painting and new materials. It was open to every possible source of inspiration, especially Japanese art and aesthetics. Art Nouveau works were dominated by characteristic flowing, swirling lines, ornament and motifs taken from the natural world. The natural world surrounding man was transposed into the domain of art.

Art Nouveau strove for the unity of the arts, for a total work (gesamtkunstwerk), and was intended by its creators to be an international style. And so it did.

The exhibition presents examples of Art Nouveau from various European countries, including France, Germany, the Czech Republic, and of course Poland, glass and ceramics, furniture and utilitarian objects, paintings and obi belts, introducing the viewer to the fascinating world of Art Nouveau.

The Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola has for years been building up a collection of art déco art, primarily handicrafts. The Art Nouveau exhibition provides an excellent backdrop not only for this collection, but also for the newly opened Alfons Karpinski Gallery.

The exhibition will feature more than 100 objects from the Karkonosze Museum in Jelenia Góra, the Mazovian Museum in Plock, the Copper Museum in Legnica, the National Museum in Poznan, the National Museum in Szczecin, the Museum of Household Appliances in Ziębice, the Museum of Kujawska and Dobrzyńska Land in Włocławek, and the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Cracow.

Scenario and artistic arrangement of the exhibition: Dr. Anna Król

Coordination of the exhibition: Magdalena Kołtunowicz