Information
Established in 1985, the Zderzak Gallery in Cracow features artworks by leading contemporary Polish painters and European Old Masters. The latter group largely comprises Italian paintings from the fourteenth century and Florentine baroque works, but also includes sixteen Dutch and Flemish paintings. The oldest among them is the Adoration of the Child, painted in Ghent in the fifteenth century in the style of the Flemish Primitives.
The Zderzak collection also includes the mystical nocturne St. Christopher by Jan Wellens de Cock (1480–1570) from Antwerp and the Bruges painting Mourning from the workshop of Adriaen Isenbrandt (1480–1551). In addition, the gallery has nine paintings by Quiringh van Brekelenkam (1622–1669) in its collection, including the masterpiece Der Kannekijker (1664). The gallery organized the first solo exhibition of this artist’s works, accompanied by the catalogue Human Warmth in 2023.
Also noteworthy are the spring landscape by Pieter de Neyn (1597–1639), with its cool tones and the inversion of the light of earth and sky, as well as Escape into Egypt by Lodewijk de Vadder (1605–1655), with the Sonian Forest at sunset, and Tobias and the Angel by Pieter Mulier the Younger (1637–1701).
Jan Michalski, Director (July 2024)