In the collection of the Museum of Ziemia Biecka in Biecz, there is a unique photo from 1889, depicting the students of the second year of thethen School of Fine Arts (today’s Academy of Fine Arts) in Kraków, during an educational trip around the regions of Sądecczyzna and Biecz under the supervision of Prof. Władysław Łuszkiewicz.

The costume designed by Stanisław Wyspiański, which the Lajkonik (a bearded man with a hobby horse, dressed like a Tartar warrior – one of the symbols of the city’s folklore and tradition) of Kraków dons every year weighs as much as 40 kg. Despite the hot June weather, he must perform three ritual dances holding a six-meter banner...

Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński had a unique opportunity not only to get to know Wyspiański, but also to sit on the furniture designed by this Kraków artist on a daily basis. How did he assess the suite designed for the lounge?
Years later, he recalled:
“Only once did we dare protest and only after a lengthy argument about who would...

Recognising Wyspiański’s genius, Boy-Żeleński joked that if he were asked to design a locomotive, as a complete artist, he would have scrupulously brought the completed design on the next day. It is no wonder then that furniture became one of the fields of his activity.

Directors’ journals usually include unique notes concerning the production of a film or performance. They are notebooks in which all essential information is recorded – from their thoughts about the interpretation, suggestions for the arrangement of stage movements to the list of actors together with their telephone numbers. For the reader, it can be a treasury of knowledge on a stage or film adaptation of a work and offer an insight on the director's method of working. The presented journal of Andrzej Wajda is a record of his work on The Wedding by Stanisław Wyspański, which was staged in the Stary Theatre in Kraków in 1991.

At the turn of 1905, Stanisław Wyspiańki designed the interior of the flat of Zofia née Pareńska and Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński. The history of furniture creation was described by the owner in his Historia pewnych mebli [History of certain furniture] essay published in 1927 by Kurier Poranny [Morning Courier]. Apart from the furniture, other decorative elements were designed, such as the colours of the walls in the individual rooms and the matching curtains.

The idea of a comic strip about Feliks Jasieński, the Centre's patron, was the brainchild of Andrzej Wajda. The artwork was produced by Jakub Woynarowski in 2010, and it tells the story of a superhero – a Polish collector of Japanese art entangled in affairs of a social and health nature. Jakub Woynarowski keeps the story in perspective by using quite sophisticated, although simple looking means of expression – foreshortening, synthesis, as well as undertones.

The model was made in 1901 by Bronowice carpenters under the supervision of Włodzimierz Tetmajer and with the participation of a painter, Antoni Procajłowicz. The piece was commissioned by Jerzy Warchałowski on the occasion of the First Exhibition of the Polish Applied Arts Society in Kraków.

Located close to the municipal theatre (today the Słowacki Theater) and the School (later Academy) of Fine Arts, this confectionery quickly became the favourite meeting spot for the circles of young Cracovian painters. Today, there are legends about how meticulously the owner – Jan Michalik – kept his accounts...