Paschal Mystery. Witold Urbanowicz SAC. Tradition and Modernity

A Paris-based priest who taught himself to paint, hung beside the mass-produced holy pictures of a century ago: in the temporary exhibitions gallery of the Głusk town hall, Lublin’s open-air village museum sets Father Witold Urbanowicz’s paintings against Passion prints from its own collection. The show was due to close on 31 August but was still open in late September, so check before you travel. The museum publishes no English text on the show; the quotation below is our translation of its Polish announcement.

Lublin Village Open-Air Museum on the exhibition:

Religious themes are also a constant inspiration in the work of Witold Urbanowicz, an artist whose painting represents Polish art in emigration in the 20th and 21st centuries. The images of Golgotha with its crosses that dominate the paintings on show, often very similar in composition, fall into series, as if the artist were testing when he would best manage to convey the circumstances, the mood and the space of Jesus’s death.

It is characteristic of the artist that he avoids giving his works titles and leaves their interpretation to the viewer. As he says, out of respect and goodwill towards the viewer he does not want to limit or impose the meaning of a work with his own words. He wants each person to decide for themselves what they see, and how to name and define for themselves scenes and images that are on the one hand universally known and on the other leave a margin of uncertainty through barely sketched figures or a merely suggested space. The contemplative dimension of Urbanowicz’s painting is an invitation to personal experience and may be a kind of spiritual retreat.

What to expect

The gallery is inside the town hall from Głusk, on the market square of the museum’s reconstructed 1930s small town. It is an indoor show, which makes it a good answer to a rainy day in a museum you otherwise walk round in the open air.

According to the Catholic weekly “Niedziela”, several dozen of the artist’s works are on the walls. Dark Golgotha scenes dominate, alongside Stations of the Cross, the Last Supper, Judas’s betrayal and brighter paintings of the Resurrection. Next to them hang oleographs from around 1900: cheap, mass-printed religious pictures imitating oil paintings, which brought holy images into poorer homes. That pairing is the real reason to come - one priest’s private, contemplative work set beside the devotional mass print.

Do not look for titles on the labels: the artist deliberately gives his paintings none, so they read best as series rather than one by one.

Context

Witold Urbanowicz, born in 1945 in the Suwałki region of north-eastern Poland, was ordained in 1972 as a Pallottine, a member of the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (hence the SAC after his name), and has lived in France ever since. For over twenty years he designed books for the Paris publisher Éditions du Dialogue, and he taught himself painting, sculpture and stained glass; his windows include those of Corpus Christi Church in Wrocław. In 2025 Poland’s culture ministry awarded him its Bronze Medal for Merit to Culture - Gloria Artis. He is not the Second World War fighter ace of the same name whom an English web search will turn up first.

Tickets and time

Is it still open? The museum’s announcement gave 1 April to 31 August 2026. The museum then confirmed in correspondence with our editors (24 September 2026) that the show is still on. It has published no new closing date, so call or ask at the ticket office before you make the trip.

Do you need a separate ticket? No: the show is included in admission to the museum. According to its visiting page (Polish), a ticket costs 30 PLN standard, 20 PLN reduced and 60 PLN for a family holding a Polish large-family card; children under seven go free. Last winter, from December to February, tickets were half price; the museum has not yet published prices for winter 2026/27.

Opening hours. During the spring and summer run the gallery kept shorter hours than the open-air museum: the museum gave them then as Tuesday to Sunday, 12:00-16:00. It has not said whether those hours still apply in autumn, so do not plan a morning or Monday visit without checking. According to the visiting page, the open-air museum itself is open daily 9:00-17:00 in October, and Tuesday to Sunday 9:00-15:00 in November and December and from January to March, with last entry one hour before closing. It is closed on 1 November, from 24 to 31 December, on 1 and 6 January and at Easter.

Free admission days. The museum announces them week by week in its news section (Polish) and warns that on those days the displays inside buildings are closed. The gallery is inside the town hall, so on a free day you will most likely not see the show - this is our reading, as the museum does not apply the warning to this exhibition by name.

How long. Allow 30-40 minutes for the gallery, plus the walk through the museum to the town square; two to three hours for the whole open-air museum.

English on site: the museum’s page on the show exists only in Polish, and it says nothing about English labels. Guided tours of the museum in English are available for groups: 200 PLN for up to 15 people and 260 PLN for 16-30, plus admission, booked by phone at least seven days ahead.

Who it is for: anyone interested in religious art and folk piety, and anyone already visiting the skansen who wants something under a roof. Who can skip it: families with small children who came for the farmsteads and animals - this is a quiet, contemplative display, not a hands-on one.

Events

The next two events at the open-air museum; neither is part of the exhibition, but the first sits well with its theme.

• 3 October 2026 (Saturday), 10:00-16:00 - Heritage Celebration devoted to the church from Matczyn, built around 1686 and the oldest surviving wooden parish church in the Lublin region: Mass, talks and performances by groups from the Bełżyce municipality - museum announcement (Polish).
• 11 October 2026 (Sunday) - Cabbage Peeling (“Obieraczki kapuściane”): according to the description the museum sent our editors (24 September 2026), a folk ritual ensemble from Kocudza will show the old communal pickling of cabbage, from peeling and chopping with a cleaver to souring the barrel, ending with food and lively folk music; times not yet published - event page (Polish).

What the press says

No critical reviews and no English-language coverage, as of 27 September 2026. Three Polish items from the opening weeks, all informative and friendly:

• Lublinews (26 March 2026, newsroom): a preview of the opening that stresses the show’s two angles - religion as private experience and as part of mass culture - link .
• Radio Centrum (1 April 2026, Oksana Kostiuk): a report from the opening with visitors’ reactions; the station names Danuta Olesiuk as the curator - link .
• “Niedziela Lubelska” (7 April 2026, issue 15/2026, Urszula Buglewicz): the fullest piece, tracing the scenes of the Passion the display leads you through and noting the streaks of white that light up the dark canvases - link .

Updates

• 2026-09-24 - the museum confirmed in correspondence with our editors that the show is still on, although its announcement had given 31 August as the closing date; no new closing date has been published.

See also

• Lublin Village Open-Air Museum - the whole skansen, including the wooden church from Matczyn and the Greek Catholic church from Tarnoszyn: the village’s sacred architecture to go with the paintings.
• Holy Dialogue. Sacred Art from the KUL Museum Collection - older sacred art at the Trinity Tower, until 31 October 2026; a good counterpoint if you want to set contemporary religious painting against Gothic work.
• Exhibition of Original Posters by Łukasz Tarkowski - the skansen’s other current show, on the fence by the entrance, including a Palm Sunday poster.

The museum’s announcement is on its news page , and prices and hours are on its visiting page (both Polish only).

Museum profile: Lublin Village Open-Air Museum .