Threads of Time

Family portraits, still lifes with an old clock and landscapes by Adam Faglio, a painter from nearby Nowy Wiśnicz, at the Stanisław Fischer Museum on the market square in Bochnia (Rynek 20). The show opened on 20 September 2026 and runs until 15 November 2026.

On its website the museum gives the closing date only on the exhibition poster, published with the announcement of the opening. “Nici czasu” does not appear on the museum’s list of temporary shows, so look for it among the news posts of 11 September. The museum publishes no English text: the quotation below is our translation of its Polish description, and so is the English title.

Stanisław Fischer Museum in Bochnia on the exhibition:

Can time be stopped on canvas?

Adam Faglio, a painter from Wiśnicz, takes up the challenge, inviting us on a journey through three intertwining strands of painting:

Portraits of his closest family - studies full of love and psychological truth, a record of deep emotions, family bonds and fleeting moments.

Still lifes - harmonious compositions in which an old clock measures out the minutes of human fate like a game of chess. The coolness of the figures contrasts with the vitality of the fruit: juicy grapefruit, tart limes and sour lemons. The play of light on gleaming glass, motionless clock hands and dynamic, galloping horses come together in a poignant tale of the fleetingness of beauty.

Landscapes - spaces in which nature pulses with its own timeless rhythm, free from the dictates of human clocks.

What to expect

This is a single-painter show built from three classic genres: the portrait, the still life and the landscape. What ties them together is the passing of time, and its clearest sign is the clock. The painting chosen for the poster sets the tone: a clock face and figures of horses under a cloudy sky, reflected in a still sheet of water.

The museum gives neither the number of paintings nor the room; ask at the entrance. Allow 20-30 minutes for the show itself. Piotr J. Figiel’s paintings hang in the building at the same time. The first floor holds a gallery of Polish painting from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, with Olga Boznańska, Jacek Malczewski and Leon Wyczółkowski. Budget two hours for both temporary shows and the permanent collection.

Context

Adam Faglio was born in 1954 in Nowy Wiśnicz, a small town 8 km from Bochnia, and likes to call himself “the painter from Wiśnicz” - so Radio Kraków introduced him in 2014. He finished secondary school in Bochnia. He worked in a range of jobs, longest in heritage conservation in Poland and abroad, including in Tallinn and several German cities.

He painted throughout. In 1983 a Ministry of Culture and Art commission certified that he practised the profession of a painter, and since 1991 he has done nothing but paint. This is not his first show at the Bochnia museum: in December 2014 it showed his paintings under the title “Dziś są moje urodziny” (Today Is My Birthday).

Tickets and time

The museum names no separate ticket for temporary shows; general admission applies: 20 PLN full price, 15 PLN reduced. Reductions cover, among others, children aged 4 to 7, school pupils, students, pensioners and holders of the Polish Large Family Card; children under 4 enter free. Admission is free every Thursday, and the visiting rules make no exception for temporary shows.

The longer summer weekend hours ended with September. Until the show closes, the hours given on the museum’s exhibitions page apply: Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 10:00-15:30, Thursday 11:30-19:00 (11:30 AM to 7 PM), Saturday and Sunday 12:00-16:00; closed Monday. Last admission is half an hour before closing.

The last day of the show, 15 November, is a Sunday: the museum opens at 12:00 and the last entry is at 15:30. The museum publishes no separate hours for 1 November (a Sunday) or 11 November (a Wednesday), both public holidays; if you plan to come on either day, phone ahead: +48 14 612 32 85. Ask the staff before taking pictures - the visiting rules require the owners’ written consent for filming temporary shows and for photographing objects the museum does not own.

Who it is for: visitors who like representational painting that reads without a guide or a curator’s text, and anyone already in Bochnia, for example for the salt mine. If you are after experiment or conceptual art, there is little here for you. Thursday is the best day - free admission and the longest opening hours. Do not make a separate trip from Kraków for this show alone; pair it with the permanent collection.

The museum’s website is in Polish only, and the museum says nothing about labels in other languages or tours in English. For a painting show that is no great loss: you can look at the pictures without a translator.

What the press says

One preview on a local news site, based on the museum’s press release; no review found.

Bochnianin.pl (16 September 2026, editorial staff): a preview of the opening that divides the show into portraits, still lifes and landscapes and says it runs until 15 November - article, in Polish .

See also

• Stanisław Fischer Museum in Bochnia profile - Polish painting, folk art and the history of the salt mine, with hours, prices and how to get there.
• Piotr J. Figiel’s “Horizontal Existence; Vertical Existence” - the other painting show in the same building: nearly forty years of work by a Tarnów artist, early canvases interwoven with new ones.
• Museum of the Wiśnicz Land in Nowy Wiśnicz - painting by artists from the Wiśnicz area, in Faglio’s home town, 8 km from Bochnia.

Museum profile: Stanisław Fischer Museum in Bochnia .