Dionizy Purta, Dog, 1993 Wood, polychromy, 27 x 25 x 13 cm Leszek Macak’s collection, Kraków
For the first time ever in the Czech Republic, the Olomouc Museum of Art presents a comprehensive exhibition on Polish art brut. It gathers 200 paintings, drawings and objects by 30 artists from the first half of the 20th century to the present day.
In Poland, as in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, the interest in art brut was triggered by a wave of private collecting and surveying, including the collection of Krakow lawyer Lezsek Macak, from which a large part of our exhibition is taken. A new generation of collectors and theoreticians emerged in 1990s helping to bring art brut to a wider audience.
The exhibition is also accompanied by the first major publication (bilingual Czech and English) on the topic in the Czech Republic. Within its pages, the exhibition’s curators Šárka Belšíková and Anežka Šimková map the history of art brut in Poland while Polish theoretician Grażyna Borowik contributes to the understanding of the activities of the centers associated with psychiatric care and Małgorzata Szaefer opens up the issue of the current status of art brut in Poland.
