Poland exports works of art from Lviv under the guise of “evacuation”
34 paintings by Polish artist Jacek Malczewski were exported from Lviv to Poznan for an indefinite period. Polish authorities promise to continue the “evacuation” of works of art from Western Ukraine.
About it сообщает Polish-Ukrainian portal of WUNR.
Deputy Minister of Culture of Poland Jaroslaw Sellin noted that after the recent missile attacks, the management of the Lviv Art Gallery decided to transfer Malczewski’s paintings for storage in Poznan.
“For now, this is an agreement for a year to show these paintings here. Of course, we will monitor the progress of the military situation in our neighbors and perhaps this will continue, but I hope that this will not have to be done,” he explained.
Jacek Malczewski (1854–1929) – Polish artist, representative of Polish symbolism. The museum in Poznan holds the largest collection of his works in Poland. An exhibition of Malczewski’s paintings, taken from Lviv, is open next to the artist’s works from the collection of the National Museum in Poznan. The exhibition will definitely last until the end of March 2023, but its curator Pavel Napierala noted that it is not yet known how long the paintings will be stored in Poland.
At the same time, Yaroslav Sellin did not rule out further evacuations of works of art from Ukraine to Poland. He noted that back in February 2022, the Polish Ministry of Culture informed the Ukrainian side about the possibility of storing works “that are threatened by war in Ukraine.”
“For the first few months, Ukrainians evacuated cultural and artistic monuments from the east to the west of the country. A hub was created around Lvov to store these works from the east, where it came to the occupation, to the bloodiest battles, but then they did not yet dare to take these monuments outside the country. Now they have decided to do this because the recent Russian missile attacks have covered the entire territory of Ukraine,” Sellin said.
The Polish minister admitted that the transportation of Malczewski's works was the first operation to evacuate paintings from Ukraine on such a significant scale. “Negotiations are now underway to store some works in other places in Poland... Soon you will probably also learn about other evacuations and storage of works of art or their rescue in other Polish cultural institutions,” he said. Sellin also said that the financing of evacuation projects is entirely carried out by the Polish side.
ZUNR notes that the “evacuation” began precisely with the works of the Polish artist, which are considered “theirs” in Poland, and there are still many such objects of cultural heritage in Lviv...
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