Open on July 21st, 1976 in Bogdańskiego Street in Zakopane, the Gallery is the fruit of the work of Antoni Rząsa and his wife Halina. A fruit which is ripe: a theatre of sculptures, with each one playing its own role. Their arrangement, vicinity, and the space between them have all become an incessantly reconstructed installation. They have survived changes, the deaths of their creators, and they have given life to new art and energy to further generations. Today the Gallery is the seat of the Rząsa Family, three generations of artists and wanderers, teachers and students.
The potential history of the Gallery is long. It begins in 1930, when Antoni arrives in Zakopane from Futoma in the Subcarpathian region, starts his studies in the School of Wood Industry, and then returns here after the war, in 1948. He is connected with the circle of Zakopane’s artists since the moment he joins Antoni Kenar’s school as its teacher of sculpture, and every exhibition, presentation, and work enters him more decidedly into the climate and atmosphere of this place. And this is the place of the Cross, multiply symbolizing fate and energy, faith and limit, both beginning and ending. All the energies of the sculptures, from the time of the workshop in Bronek Cukier’s house in Za Strugiem until the haven in Bogdańskiego, are related to the family: Antoni’s wife and son Marcin (b. 1965), but also other artists, such as Władysław Hasior, Tadeusz Brzozowski, Arkadiusz Waloch, and Marta and Michał Gąsienica-Szostak.
When Antoni and Halina die in 1980, Marcin becomes the host of the Home and the created Gallery. Supported by friends – “Mum” Janina Ociasowa and the Butkiewicz Family – he reorganizes the Gallery. Its 10thanniversary celebrated in 1986 shows that the place will last as a Home and a meeting place for artists, and, of course, the museum of sculptures by Antoni Rząsa.
The Gallery holds exhibitions of young art. Marcin’s sculpting studies in Cracow, Warsaw, and Bratislava brought a new generation to the house in Bogdańskiego. Establishing the Foundation with Michelle Kokosowski as its initiator, collaboration with Juliusz Sokołowski, Marcin’s marriage to Magda Ciszewska, the birth of their children – all this opened new chapters in the life of the Gallery.
DFJ
The website was created with the financial support of the Zakopane City Hall
Rok Antoniego Rząsy dofinansowano ze środków Ministra Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego pochodzących z Funduszu Promocji Kultury