The Friends of the National Museum in Warsaw Association is organising a charity auction “Collectors and collectors for the Museum” on 26 February. 16 carefully selected works from the collections of well-known Polish collectors will be put up for auction, with the proceeds funding the creation of the collection Self-Portraits XXI. 

“Collectors for the Museum” is a special situation when, for an important cause, collectors become philanthropists and donate works from their collections that are personally important to them, characteristic of the direction of their artistic interests, and with which it was often difficult to part. 

Thanks to the commitment and kindness of the collectors, it was possible to acquire 16 works of art – from the classics to the hottest names of the young generation. Most of those who decided to donate works from their collections to the auction never sell items from their collections. Thus, it has been possible to collect unique works that would otherwise never come on the market again, with a different story and motivation behind each one. 

The Collectors for the Museum auction will take place on 26 February at Desa Unicum in Warsaw and online. The donated objects can be viewed at the exhibition in Desa Unicum.

Proceeds from the auction will be used to fund the Self-Portraits XXI collection. The collection consists of self-portraits by distinguished painters. Paweł Althamer, Mirosław Bałka, Agnieszka Brzeżańska, Rafał Bujnowski, Barbara Falender, Izabella Gustowska, Zuzanna Janin, Łukasz Korolkiewicz, Katarzyna Krakowiak, Zbigniew Libera, Rafał Milach, Jarosław Modzelewski, Agnieszka Polska, Katarzyna Przezwańska, Karol Radziszewski, Joanna Rajkowska, Wilhelm Sasnal, Jadwiga Sawicka, Aleksandra Waliszewska and Artur Żmijewski accepted the invitation to join the project and produced their self-portraits.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński