Regional Museum in Bydgoszcz

About

The Leon Wyczółkowski Regional Museum (Polish: Muzeum Okręgowe im. Leona Wyczółkowskiego w Bydgoszczy) is an ensemble of cultural institutions which have been first created in 1923 in the city of Bydgoszcz, Poland.

The seat of the museum is located at 4, Gdańska Street, in downtown district. The historic building was originally part of the former monastery of the Poor Clares. The edifice has been used as a municipal hospital and has received an additional wing along Gdańska street in 1878, with Neo-Renaissance and Mannerism styles.

The institution inherits the traditions of a Prussian association, Historical Society of the Noteć Region ( German : Historische Gesellschaft für den Netzedistrikt zu Bromberg ) which, from 1880 to 1902, was devoted to collecting historical collections and researching the history of the city of Bromberg and its region. From 1902 to 1945, the society operated as a historical branch of the German Society of Arts and Science in Bydgoszcz ( German : Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kunst und Wissenschaft ). The collections were located in the former monastery of the Poor Clares' Church and were open to the public from 30 November 1890. The curator until 1920 was Konrad Kothe, a citizen of Bydgoszcz and a naturalist with some museum management practice. In May 1919, in the face of Bydgoszcz return to the reborn Polish state, part of the collection was moved to Berlin and deposited in the Museum für Völkerkunde.

Taking over the municipal council on 20 January 1920, Polish authorities strove to open a museum for the city. They identified as first location a tenement house on the western frontage of the Old Market Square, at No.2, abutting to the Church of St. Ignacy Loyola (razed in 1940), which used to house the Municipal Savings Bank. The museum opened on 5 August 1923, under the tenure of Bernard Śliwiński, city mayor and its first director was Father Jan Klein, a librarian, museologist and historian from Bydgoszcz.

Initially, collections were not extensive, mainly in the field of:

- archeology, the richest section, with several thousand items;

- history, collecting relics from city craft guilds and militaria ;

- ethnography. Soon a department of Polish art dealing with painting, graphics and sculpture was created. The first two directors Father Jan Klein (1923-1925) and Tadeusz Dobrowolski (1925-1927) dedicated their energy to expand this section. Hence, they acquired works of Teodor Axentowicz, Julian Fałat, Józef Pankiewicz, Jacek Malczewski or Wojciech Weiss. A parallel collection was initiated, aiming at local artists, such as Maksymilian Piotrowski. At its heyday in 1929, the museum possessed 195 paintings and 28 sculptures: it grandly benefited from the attention of the president of Bydgoszcz Bernard Śliwiński.

From 1926 onwards, the activities of the museum were reduced and the staff was reduced. The management board was mainly led by city counselor Tadeusz Janicki and local painter Kazimierz Borucki took over the direction. In 1928, an exhibition of paintings by Bydgoszcz painter Walter Leistikow was set up, in which works by Leon Wyczółkowski, living in nearby village of Gościeradz, were also presented.

The arrival of Leon Barciszewski as a new mayor in 1932, brought back a new life to the activity of the institution. In 1933, an exhibition for the 10th anniversary of the museum was organized, gathering souvenirs and objects narrating the history of Bydgoszcz.

In 1937, as dictated in his will, Leon Wyczółkowski donated his works to the museum, thus greatly increasing its collection. The donation comprised about 400 paintings, graphics, drawings and sketches of the artist, including the equipment of his lithography studio. The same yeat Krakow artist Konstanty Laszczka donated a collection of sculptures. Both contributions were displayed in July 1937 in the building of the former orphanage at Chodkiewicza street, then used for educational purposes.

At the end of August 1939, the collection of the municipal Museum registered 6,803 items:

- half of which listed in the archeology department;

- 210 in the craft and Bydgoszcz history;

- 200 in the ethnography department, including African items;

- 150 in the militaria section. In addition to the permanent collections, the museum also conducted exhibitions. From 1923 to 1939, about 120 temporary exhibitions were set up and a new permanent exhibition was realized, named as City Gallery. In order to make attractive to the general public the work of local artists, an annual exhibition called the Bydgoszcz Salon, in reference to the Paris Salon, was established in 1936.

From 1934 until 1939, the management of the museum was associated with the Artistic and Cultural Council in Bydgoszcz ( Polish : Rada Artystyczno-Kulturalna w Bydgoszczy ), whose task was to coordinate and care for artistic and cultural activities in the city. On the eve of the outbreak of World War II, the Bydgoszcz Municipal Museum was an important art center, the seat of many cultural and artistic societies and a meeting place for the cultural activists.

Period of the German occupation (1939–1945)

Just before the invasion of Poland, a campaign to secure some of the museum pieces was carried out: the branch located at Chodkiewicza street moved the exhibits to the main building at the Market Square. Once occupied, Bydgoszcz was taken over by German administration which designated a new Museum curator, Willem Drost from Gdańsk. In 1940, the post of director was taken over by the former collection custodian, Konrad Kothe and the custodian position remained to Kazimierz Borucki. In September 1939, Polish hostages -including Catholic priests- were publicly shot, lined up along the walls of the museum and the Church of St. Ignacy Loyola. In the spring of 1940, Nazi authorities pulled down the entire western frontage of the Old Market Square, thus razing the tenement house housing the museum: collections were moved to a pawnshop building at Pocztowa street.

During the war, weapons, numismatics and paintings were added to the museum's collections, handed over by Bydgoszcz citizens threatened by the German authorities. Throughout the occupation, about 1,500 items were acquired (gifts or purchases), including some exhibits that the Historical Society of the Noteć Region recovered from Berlin. To some extent, minor exhibitions were conducted (seven exhibitions between 1941 and 1944).