Collection
The National Museum in Gdańsk is one of the oldest museums in Poland. It was created through the merger of two institutions – the City Museum (1870) and the Museum of Arts and Crafts (1881). The core of our collection is the collection of Jacob Kabrun (1759–1814), comprising several thousand paintings, drawings and prints by European masters from the late 15th to the early 19th century.
The museum’s main building, a late Gothic Franciscan monastery, houses the Medieval and Early Modern Art Department. The Museum also has five other branches housed in historic buildings. The Department of Modern Art is housed in the Abbots’ Palace in Gdańsk-Oliwa, while the nearby Abbots’ Granary is home to the Department of Ethnography. The Green Gate on Długi Targ hosts a variety of temporary exhibitions. The Museum of the National Anthem is located in the manor house of Józef Wybicki in Będomin, near Kościerzyna, while the historic palace once owned by the Sierakowski family in Waplewo Wielkie is home to the Museum of Polish Nobility. In 2021, NOMUS – the youngest museum of contemporary art in Poland – was established in the former shipyard area of Gdańsk. The Gdańsk Gallery of Photography is part of NOMUS.
Collection
Medieval and Early Modern Art Collection
Toruńska 1 St, Gdańsk Śródmieście
- Flemish and Dutch painting from the 15th to the 17th century, most importantly The Last Judgement by Hans Memling. The painting is one of the most important works of art in Poland. The collection also has works by masters such as Peter Bruegel the Younger, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Jacob Swanenburgh, Paul Vredeman de Vries, Jan Fyt and many more;
- Gdańsk painting with 265 works from the 16th to the early 20th century that represent the most important trends and artists in historical Gdańsk art, including Hans Vredeman de Vries, Daniel Schultz, Anton Möller and Andreas Stech;
- a large collection of drawings and prints that represent all the European schools in art from the late 15th to the 19th century, led by a collection of prints by Dürer and Rembrandt;
- an impressive collection of Gdańsk and Northern European furniture,
- artistic tin, iron, gold, silver and bell-foundry artefacts, and copper and brass objects;
- an ensemble of fabrics and embroideries including historical textiles from the 13th to the 20th century. The collection includes Eastern cloths, tapestries, liturgical paraments from Gdańsk and Pomeranian churches, clothing and fashion accessories, and lace.
- a collection of ceramics with items from almost all over Europe.
Read more about our Medieval and Early Modern Art Collection
Modern Art Collection
Abbot’s Palace, Cystersów 18 St, Gdańsk Oliwa
The modern art collection is particularly rich in drawing and painting. The collection of Polish painting from the 19th and early 20th centuries encompasses works by artists representing almost all the major movements and tendencies in Polish art of the period, including Jan Matejko, Olga Boznańska, Aleksander Gierymski, Władysław Podkowiński and Jacek Malczewski. The collection also includes prints, ceramics, sculpture and textile art. 20th-century painting is represented by works of the Colourists of the Gdańsk School, including Juliusz Studnicki and Józefa Wnukowa, as well as artists from other centres across Poland, and by traditionalist painters, foremost among them Antoni Suchanek and Marian Mokwa.
The modern art collection also includes important collections of theatre-related materials, including stage designs, costumes and theatre posters, documenting the history of Polish theatre. The collection includes works by Marian Kołodziej, Alina Afanasjew and Włodzimierz Komorowski.
The collection also includes more than 65 works by Günter Grass, as well as a substantial group of works by French artists, including Georges Braque, Wassily Kandinsky and Marc Chagall.
NOMUS – New Museum of Art
Stefana Jaracza 14 St, Gdańsk
NOMUS is Poland’s youngest museum of modern art, operating as a branch of the National Museum in Gdańsk, Department of Modern Art. We have created a visitor-friendly space in a former school workshop building on the historic premises of Gdańsk Shipyard. We want to talk with our visitors about the contemporary world through the medium of art, and bring art itself closer to the viewer, make it understandable and accessible to all.
Gdańsk Gallery of Photography
Stefana Jaracza 14 St, Gdańsk
The photographs at the Gdańsk Photography Gallery are of local, regional and historic nature. The bulk of the collection is Gdańsk photography and photographs from Poland’s former Eastern Borderlands. Recently, thanks to artists’ donations, we have considerably enlarged our collection of contemporary art photography from Poland and abroad.
Department of Ethnography
Abbot’s Granary, ul. Cystersów 19, Gdańsk Oliwa
So far, the Museum has collected and studied about 9000 exhibits of folk culture. Besides Besides a collection of Pomeranian artefacts (including a very interesting collection of furniture) there are comparative items from the cultures of the Kuyavia, Pałuki, Warmia and Masuria regions. There is a noteworthy collection of unique items left by the former Frisian settlers of the Żuławy Lowlands. The collection also includes items of the material culture of the people repatriated from Poland’s former Eastern Borderlands. Especially noteworthy is a small but very interesting collection of non-European ethnographic items, with arms, sculpture, ceramics and jewellery from Africa, South America and Oceania.
The Department of Ethnography has a permanent exhibition „Folk Culture of Gdańsk Pomerania”, which is a presentation of the basic forms of the rural economy and activities of the people of Gdańsk Pomerania – fishing, farming, animal husbandry and home processing. The collected objects come mainly from Kashubia, but also from Kociewie, Żuławy and Powiśle.
Museum of the National Anthem
Będomin 16, Nowy Barkoczyn
A large patriotic music collection, including 19th-century music boxes playing Dąbrowski’s Mazurek, the Polish national anthem, and the oldest records with the song from the early 20th century. The collection also includes one of Poland’s largest assemblages of archival patriotic postcard’s with the motif of the White Eagle, Poland’s national coat of arms.
Museum of Polish Nobility
Pomeranian Contact Centre with Expatriates
Waplewo Wielkie, 82-410 Stary Targ
The Museum of Polish Nobility, housed in the Palace of the Counts Sierakowski collects mementoes and works of art related to the building’s history (the palace, farm buildings and the park, acting as a summer drawing room) and the story of its owners, the Sierakowski family, its predecessors and the related families who influenced the interior décor in Waplewo (the Sołtan, Pociej, Radziwiłł, Potocki, Lubomirski and Zboiński clans).
The Museum’s main objective is to develop a collection of items related to the Polish gentry culture in its broad sense by acquiring objets d’art that used to adorn manors, palaces and their surroundings, clothes worn by the Polish gentry and the objects that accompanied the gentry in their everyday efforts managing their property, their social and cultural activism and during leisure time. A collection of letters by the poet Zygmunt Krasiński and items with family coats of arms are especially valuable.