Tomasz Zawadzki

Paintings by the Lublin abstract painter Tomasz Zawadzki hang in the castle gallery devoted to the “Zamek” Group, the 1950s avant-garde circle his work grows out of. The display is one of a year-long series marking the 120th anniversary of the National Museum in Lublin and runs from 7 August 2026 to 3 January 2027. The museum publishes no English text on it, so the quotation below is our translation of its Polish description.

National Museum in Lublin on the exhibition:

Tomasz Zawadzki is one of the leading representatives of contemporary abstract painting in Poland. For almost forty years his work has been developing a painterly language of its own. It is deeply rooted in the tradition of formal experiment that artists associated with the “Zamek” Group developed in Lublin from the mid-1950s. Like the members of the Lublin group, the artist concentrates on the physicality of the object and the structure of materials, developing matter painting and exploring the three-dimensionality of the picture space. His works operate with the abstract sign, pronounced texture and the relations of colour and form, extending the historical experience of the “Zamek” Group with a contemporary perspective. In this way the Lublin painter’s works, set in the space of the gallery, create a clear dialogue between the post-war avant-garde and contemporary artistic strategies.

What to expect

This is a display inside a permanent gallery, not a separate temporary exhibition with a room of its own. The museum lists no number of works, no titles and no dates. The point is the setting: you see recent abstract canvases in the same space as the paintings of the 1950s group, so the comparison suggests itself.

Until 1 November 2026 the same gallery also holds a second anniversary display: early, still figurative works by Jerzy Durakiewicz and Tytus Dzieduszycki-Sas . Come before that date and you get both ends of the story side by side - the group before it turned to abstraction, and a painter who carries its matter painting on today.

The museum describes the whole anniversary series as a presentation of gifts to its collection. The entry on Zawadzki, however, does not say which works are shown or how they came to the museum. On its page about the contemporary art collection, the museum names him among the artists from Lublin’s university art faculty whose works keep adding to its holdings.

Context

Tomasz Zawadzki was born in Lublin in 1956 and studied painting at the state art college in Wrocław. He is a professor at the Faculty of Arts of Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) in Lublin, where he heads the Department of Painting and Drawing, and has worked with Lublin’s Labirynt Gallery since the late 1980s. His paintings are built from colour, thick texture and light, and some titles are almost defiantly literal: “Obraz żółty” (Yellow Painting), “Obraz zielony” (Green Painting).

The “Zamek” Group - the name means “castle” - formed in Lublin during the political thaw of the second half of the 1950s. Its artists included Włodzimierz Borowski, Jerzy Durakiewicz, Tytus Dzieduszycki and Jan Ziemski, alongside the critics Jerzy Ludwiński, Wiesław Borowski and Hanna Ptaszkowska. Zawadzki is not new to this museum either: according to Polish Wikipedia, in 2012, when it was still called the Lublin Museum, it showed a selection of his works from 1995-2012 under the title “Notatki na temat malarstwa” (“Notes on Painting”).

Tickets and time

There is no separate ticket. The museum does not say so in as many words, but its price list has no entry for the anniversary displays, and the “Zamek” Group gallery is one of the permanent exhibitions. Our reading is that a permanent-exhibitions ticket covers it: 20 PLN standard, 15 PLN reduced. The combined ticket that adds the Holy Trinity Chapel and the castle keep costs 40 PLN and 30 PLN, but only the ticket office sells it. Children under seven go free.

The free day covers this gallery. There is no fixed weekday: the museum announces free-admission dates month by month in a table on its visitor information page . The table lists them separately for each part of the castle; the permanent exhibitions, and so this gallery, are included, the keep is not.

Most of the run falls in the winter season. The museum keeps two timetables. In summer (April to September) the permanent exhibitions open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday 9:00-18:00, and Friday and Saturday 9:00-19:00. In winter (October to March), which covers the rest of the run, they close an hour earlier: 9:00-17:00 and 9:00-18:00. On Mondays the permanent exhibitions are closed, although the chapel and the keep stay open. The display ends on Sunday 3 January 2027; the museum’s website gives no holiday opening hours.

The display itself takes 15-20 minutes; allow about half an hour for the whole “Zamek” Group gallery. It fits best into a walk round the other permanent exhibitions, which the same ticket covers.

English on site: the museum’s English website describes the gallery itself, as the Gallery of “Zamek” (“Castle”) group and the avant-garde, but has no English text on this display, and says nothing about English labels for it.

Who it is for: anyone curious about Lublin’s 1950s avant-garde and where it led, painting students, and anyone doing the permanent exhibitions anyway. Who can skip it: visitors after a large monographic show with a catalogue and a programme of events; as of 23 September 2026 the museum has announced no guided tours or talks for this display.

See also

• National Museum in Lublin (Lublin Castle) - the display sits on the permanent-exhibition route; the profile covers the Holy Trinity Chapel and the keep, both worth adding to the same visit.
• Labirynt Gallery - the gallery Zawadzki has worked with since the late 1980s; as the museum notes on its “Zamek” Group gallery page, it is where Lublin’s later conceptual experiments were shown, the next link after the group.
• Cezary Klimaszewski: boor - a show at Labirynt from 2 to 25 October 2026, for anyone who wants the newest art after the castle.
• Tamara Lempicka - Beyond Borders - 20th-century painting in the same castle, on a separate ticket (40 PLN, reduced 20 PLN).

Opening hours are on the museum’s visitor information page , prices on its price list and the whole anniversary schedule on the anniversary displays page (all in Polish).

Museum profile: National Museum in Lublin (Lublin Castle) .