The May Coup: A Caricaturist's Sharp Eye

From 20 May to 30 September 2026 the Museum of Independence showed its own caricatures of the 1926 May Coup and Sanacja rule by Gustaw Rogalski (1887-1939) and Zdzisław Czermański (1900-1970) in its main building, the Przebendowski/Radziwiłł Palace.

The two artists’ satirical drawings were a direct, often merciless commentary on the state of the country and its leading political figures. The material captured the political mood of the era more vividly than most textbooks. The show was curated by Dr Jacek Konik, who gave curator’s tours while it ran, including one on 15 July 2026 (museum announcement, in Polish).

Updates

• 2026-10-01 - the exhibition closed on 30 September 2026 (source: the Museum of Independence’s post on the exhibition catalogue).

After the show

The show leaves behind a catalogue, “Zamach majowy i sanacja / surowym okiem karykatury”, published by the Museum of Independence’s own press (Warsaw 2026, paperback, 92 pages, ISBN 978-83-68378-45-0, in Polish). Alongside reproductions of the caricatures it carries the curator’s essay on politics and everyday life after the coup, an essay by Małgorzata Karolina Piekarska on Rogalski and Czermański, and a list of the works shown. It costs 75 PLN at the museum’s online bookshop. If you only want to see the drawings, you need not buy it: the museum offers the whole catalogue free as a PDF on its catalogue page.

Current and upcoming shows at the Museum of Independence:

• Radek Jaworski: Forgotten - Lower Silesia - from 2 October until 30 October 2026 in the same building at al. Solidarności 62; photographs of abandoned palaces, sanatoriums and cemeteries in Lower Silesia, in south-western Poland, and the simplest reason to go back to the palace where the caricatures hung.
• Bogusław Lustyk: The Memory of the Uprising - at the Brama Bielańska Gallery in the Warsaw Citadel until 25 October 2026; paintings and installations on the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, for visitors interested in how an artist comments on history.

Other current shows in Warsaw on politics seen through drawing and print:

• Photocopy and Hand Out! Zines and the Independent Press in Poland During the Transition - at the Museum of Caricature, ul. Kozia 11 near the Old Town, until 15 November 2026; independent prints from the years after 1989, and the museum itself is the first address in Warsaw for Polish caricature.
• I Am a Political Animal. Jerzy Giedroyc and Kultura 1947-2000 - at the Museum of Literature until 31 October 2026; Giedroyc’s story begins with his political journalism of the interwar years, the same Sanacja years Rogalski and Czermański drew.

Museum profile: Museum of Independence.