Józef Czapski - L'Humanité / Humanity

An exhibition of drawings and paintings by Józef Czapski - painter, writer, and witness to the 20th century’s most dramatic events - from the Warsaw Archdiocese Museum’s own collection.

Warsaw Archdiocese Museum on the exhibition:

Part of the Year of Józef Czapski, the exhibition gathers works from the museum’s own collection spanning over half a century of the artist’s output: from ink and pencil drawings to watercolours and oils. The exhibition’s title - L’Humanité / Humanity - states its guiding theme. Throughout his life Czapski portrayed people: anonymous passers-by, tired men at bar tables, lovers, figures from the public life of postwar France. His gaze - attentive, free of idealisation - took shape in Soviet prisoner-of-war camps, where he began drawing the faces of his fellow captives. The works, spanning decades, form a collective, honest portrait of humanity.

What to expect

The exhibition is folded into the permanent display (a regular museum ticket applies) and runs through 29 November 2026. Curator Piotr Bernatowicz led curator-guided tours in June and July; the accompanying lecture series continues.

This is a small, focused show drawn entirely from the museum’s own holdings. Drawings make up most of it, alongside six oil paintings, the number the curator gave at the opening. The works run from the 1940s to his late years in France. Czapski shares a floor with the Wiesław Szamborski exhibition, so one visit and one ticket cover both.

Works to look out for (from the museum’s announcement as published by its media patron, the art portal Niezła Sztuka):

• “Głowa mężczyzny” (Head of a Man), Brindisi 1943 - the earliest work on show, a drawing made in the southern Italian town of Brindisi.
• Portrait of Abbé Pierre - the priest who founded the Emmaus movement, one of the public figures of postwar France Czapski drew.
• “Mężczyzna przy barze ze skrzyżowanymi nogami” (Man at a Bar with Crossed Legs) - the tired men at bar counters the museum’s description mentions.
• “Mężczyzna z dzieckiem na ramieniu” (Man with a Child on His Shoulder), 1972 and “Na plaży” (On the Beach), 1961 - everyday scenes, the raw material of the whole show.
• “Wystawa de Staela” (The de Staël Exhibition), 1981 - one of the latest works named in the announcement.

While preparing the show, the museum checked the titles of some drawings and identified several sitters who had been anonymous until now (as the curator told Niezalezna.pl).

Tickets and opening hours are on the Warsaw Archdiocese Museum’s website.

Context

Józef Czapski (1896-1993) was a Polish painter and writer, one of the Kapists, a group of Polish colourists who went to Paris in the 1920s under the spell of Cézanne. Taken prisoner by the Soviets in 1939, he was among the very few Polish officers to survive the Katyn massacre. In 1941-1942, serving in General Anders’s army, he searched the USSR for the missing men, a story he told in “Inhuman Land”. He settled in France in 1946 and from 1947 lived in Maisons-Laffitte outside Paris, in the house that was the editorial home of the émigré monthly “Kultura”, which he helped create; communist Poland censored his name.

That makes this museum’s claim on him a real one. In June 1986 it held Czapski’s first postwar exhibition in Warsaw, and the collection on view today is, in the curator’s words, in a sense a legacy of that show. Poland’s parliament declared 2026 the Year of Józef Czapski, for the 130th anniversary of his birth.

Tickets and time

• Pick the right ticket. The cheaper combined ticket for temporary exhibitions (30 PLN regular, 20 PLN reduced) does not include the Czapski show, according to the museum’s price list. You need the ticket for the permanent and temporary exhibitions.
• Ticket including Czapski: 40 PLN regular, 25 PLN reduced, 89 PLN family (up to two adults and five children under 18), per the price list and the visitor essentials page. The exhibition page quotes 35 PLN regular; plan on the price-list figure.
• With the cathedral crypts: 43 PLN regular, 28 PLN reduced.
• Free: children under 7, clergy, journalists and museum staff. The price list names no free-admission day.
• Reduced tickets cover, among others, school pupils and students, visitors over 65, teachers and Large Family Card (Karta Dużej Rodziny) holders.
• Warsaw Pass covers all the museum’s exhibitions, temporary ones included; register the card at the desk.
• Hours: Tuesday-Friday 12:00-18:00, Saturday-Sunday 12:00-16:00, closed Mondays. Closed on 1 November.
• Buying: at the desk or online in the museum’s shop (card, bank transfer, BLIK). Guided tours must be arranged in advance; a tour costs 250 PLN in Polish or 350 PLN in a foreign language.
• Getting there: ul. Dziekania 1 in the Old Town, between the Royal Castle and St John’s Archcathedral.
• Access: lift, ramp and wheelchair-accessible toilets. An audio guide is available.
• How long: the museum does not say. The Czapski show fills one room (per misyjne.pl), so allow about an hour for it; at weekends, when the museum closes at 16:00, arrive by 14:00 if you also want Szamborski and the permanent collection.
• English on site: the museum does not state whether labels are in English, and its website has no English version; the audio guide’s languages are not listed.

Who it is for: readers of “Inhuman Land” and of the “Kultura” circle who know Czapski as a witness to history and want to see him as a draughtsman, and anyone who loves quick drawing from life. If you are after big, colour-saturated Kapist canvases, adjust expectations: there are six oils here.

Events

Lectures accompanying the exhibition start at 17:30 and last about an hour; the museum’s pages are in Polish only. Full list: museum lectures page.

• 10.11.2026, 17:30 - “Mińszczyzna - kraj lat dziecinnych Józefa Czapskiego” (The Minsk Region, Land of Czapski’s Childhood), Ewa Ziółkowska on the family estate of Przyłuki near Minsk, with her own photographs from Belarus; 25 PLN, 10 PLN with the MAW annual ticket: details
• 13.10.2026, 17:30 - “Czapski. Malarz, pisarz, żołnierz Andersa” (Czapski: Painter, Writer, Soldier of Anders’s Army), dr Ewa Korpysz, curator at the museum, a biographical talk with slides; 25 PLN, 10 PLN with the MAW annual ticket: details
• 15.09.2026, 17:30 - “Dlaczego Józef Czapski nie stał się ulubionym malarzem francuskich komunistów?” (Why Czapski Never Became the French Communists’ Favourite Painter), the curator dr Piotr Bernatowicz comparing Czapski’s postwar paintings with the work of left-wing engaged artists; a paid lecture: details

What the press says

No English-language coverage found so far. Three Polish reports on the opening, all favourable; no critical review found.

• Polish Radio, Redakcja Polska (22.06.2026, Ewa Plisiecka): a recorded interview with the curator; the article text argues that the Soviet camps turned Czapski’s attention to ordinary people - article and audio, in Polish
• Niezalezna.pl (23.06.2026, Olga Alehno): a report from the double opening, stressing the 40th anniversary of the 1986 show and the newly identified sitters - article, in Polish
• misyjne.pl (23.06.2026, Karolina Binek): a long report on both shows that sets Czapski the Kapist against Szamborski, who rebelled against post-Kapist colourism, in two rooms on the same floor - article, in Polish

Curator Piotr Bernatowicz at the opening (quoted by Niezalezna.pl, our translation): “It would have been a sin of omission not to show the collection, or at least part of it, that the Warsaw Archdiocese Museum holds.”

See also

• “Tragedy and Gestures”, Wiesław Szamborski at the Warsaw Archdiocese Museum - the second show on the same floor and the same ticket, until 15 November 2026.
• Warsaw Archdiocese Museum permanent collection - beyond sacred art, émigré painters Lebenstein and Kossowski and 27 paintings by Zdzisław Beksiński.
• “Jestem zwierzęciem politycznym”, Jerzy Giedroyc and “Kultura” at the Museum of Literature - until 31 October 2026, with Czapski’s paintings and manuscripts in the “Kultura” circle.
• Czapski Museum in Kraków - the Józef Czapski Pavilion with a biographical permanent exhibition, his diaries and archive, for anyone who leaves wanting more.

Museum profile: Warsaw Archdiocese Museum.