Muzeum Śląskie w Katowicach

Katowice

The Silesian Museum in Katowice boasts a superb collection of works by Polish painters, presented in the Gallery of Polish Painting housed in the museum's new buildings on Dobrowolskiego Street. The gallery is best explored with an audio guide, which talks expertly about both the paintings and their creators.The Gallery of Polish Painting 1800-1945 occupies six rooms. You switch on the audio guide in the room devoted to the painting of the Romantic and early Realist periods. Here you can already admire works by such famous names as Henryk Rodakowski and Jan Matejko. The following rooms are also full of masterpieces – to name but a few: “In the Arbour” by Aleksander Gierymski, “Tobias and the Angel” by Jacek Malczewski and the “Self-Portrait” by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz.The last of these hangs in room six, reserved for interwar painting. After seeing it, it is worth continuing with the audio guide to the Gallery of Polish Painting after 1945. The paintings there will surprise and delight you.