Slavs and Tatars. LONG LVIVE LVIV. СЛАВА ЗА БРЕСЛАВA
Czas trwania: 16.10.2021–31.01.2022
Wernisaż: 15.10.2021, 18:30
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CONTEXTS – HISTORY OF THE KULCZYCKI FAMILY COLLECTION
The narrative of the exhibition plays out against the unique collection of carpets and eastern fabrics acquired by Włodzimierz and Jerzy Kulczycki. The history of this extraordinary set, which very rarely leaves the current place of its storage, i.e. the Tytus Chałubiński Tatra Museum in Zakopane, dates back to 1906, when professor Włodzimierz Kulczycki (1862–1936), a veterinarian, lecturer and rector of the Veterinary Academy in Lviv, bought his first carpets, tapestries and kilims. From the very beginning, Włodzimierz Kulczycki followed a scientific approach to his passion, as demonstrated by the direction of development he envisioned for his collection – it was supposed to represent the carpets of all nations of Asia Minor, Central Asia, Iran and the Caucasus.[1] Interestingly, the father’s interests were successfully continued by his son Jerzy Kulczycki (1898–1974), an archaeologist, art historian, professor at the University of Warsaw. In the interwar period, the collection was significantly expanded – by 1940 it numbered over two hundred objects and was repeatedly presented at temporary exhibitions. Thanks to Jerzy Kulczycki, the fabrics survived both the bombing of Lviv in 1941, which marked the beginning of the Lviv pogroms, and the entire resettlement action (1944–1946). With the help of many sympathetic people, Jerzy Kulczycki managed to move the entire collection to Warsaw, where for many years it was kept under a double floor in the one-room flat of the Kulczycki family.[2] In 1964, the collection was divided. Sixty-six so-called court carpets were donated to the Wawel Royal Castle, which coincided with the time when the Kulczycki family moved to the Podhale region in southern Poland. The exhibition at OP ENHEIM features a selection of fabrics that Anna Kulczycka, Jerzy Kulczycki’s widow, donated to the Tatra Museum in Zakopane in 1977. This gift consisted of 65 objects. The remaining carpets are still owned by the family. Interestingly, the collection in its entirety has been presented only once, in 2006, during a unique exhibition organised at the Wawel Castle.
The collection contains objects of inestimable value, which (depending on the type) date back to the 16th-19th centuries and exemplify the heritage of the four main areas of the Near and Middle East – Turkey, Persia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. This aspect is important for the exhibition at OP ENHEIM, as it overlaps with both the research undertaken at the Department of Oriental Studies and the Eurasian scope of interest of the Slavs and Tatars collective.
[1] See <https://muzeumtatrzanskie.pl/filie/galeria-sztuki-na-kozincu/> [accessed on 29 Aug 2021].
[2] See <https://muzeumtatrzanskie.pl/filie/galeria-sztuki-na-kozincu/> [accessed on 29 Aug 2021].
