15 October 2024 – 23 February 2025
Curator of the exhibition: Barbara Banaś
A relatively small exhibition – even though comprising around 340 items – showcases the porcelain collection of Tomasz Dziewicki.
The presentation is dedicated to one of the most interesting design trends of the late 1950s and the early 1960s in Poland. It emerged as a result of a programme introduced at that time by the Institute of Industrial Design in Warsaw, aimed, among others, at preparing new models for the state-owned ceramic factories. Designers working for the Institute were inspired by the idea of revolutionising the interiors of Polish homes in the spirit of modernity, and eliminating the so-called ‘bourgeois tawdriness’.
The ‘Big Four’ in the title of the exhibition refers to sculptors working for the Department of Ceramics and Glass at the Institute, who were employed around 1956 in order to create new sculptural designs produced by the ceramic factories to provide decorative elements for domestic interiors. The team, led by Henryk Jędrasiak, a sculpture graduate of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, included Lubomir Tomaszewski, Hanna Orthwein and Mieczysław Naruszewicz. Their task was to create a collection of ceramic figurines, trinkets which would satisfy the contemporary tastes and aesthetic expectations regarding interior design, as small works of art accessible to all.
Over the period 1956–1965, the artists created numerous designs which were then produced in all ceramic factories in Poland, from Ćmielów to Wałbrzych.
↡ Photos from the press conference and the opening ceremony
Fot. Arkadiusz Podstawka