POVERELLO. Saint Francis of Assisi - exhibition in Warsaw

“Poverello” is an exhibition at the Warsaw Archdiocese Museum for the 800th anniversary of the death of Saint Francis of Assisi: paintings, sculptures, prints, textiles, medals and old coins from more than twenty museum and monastic collections, from Matejko and Malczewski to Józef Wilkoń. The exhibition runs 2 October 2026 - 10 January 2027.

The Warsaw Archdiocese Museum on the exhibition:

The Poor Man of Assisi in Warsaw - for the first time on such a scale.

For the 800th anniversary of the death of Saint Francis of Assisi, the Warsaw Archdiocese Museum is opening the exhibition “Poverello”. Yet it is more than a religious story about a saint - it is an encounter with Francis told through art, addressed above all to lovers and devotees of painting, sculpture and graphic art. The curators have gathered so large and varied a group of outstanding artists that “Poverello” has a chance to become one of the major artistic events of the season - whether visitors are looking for spiritual reflection or simply want to see works by the finest Polish artists of several eras in one place.

The exhibition tells of the atmosphere of Assisi that shaped the mind of the young Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, of the discovery of his vocation and his choice of a path in life, of the love for all creation that stayed with Francis throughout his life, of his devotion to others and his love of poverty, and finally of the events and miracles of his life and of the transitus - the passage from this world into eternity. All of it told in the language of art: through paintings, sculptures, prints, objects of decorative art, medals, textiles and photographs from seven centuries - from the 13th to the 21st.

What to expect

The exhibition is laid out as a biography. According to the report in “Gość Niedzielny” (a Catholic weekly), the route is divided into zones that follow the stages of the saint’s transformation: from the merchant’s house in Assisi, through the break with his former life and his wonder at creation, to the “Alter Christus” room devoted to the stigmata and a finale about death, which Francis called his sister.

Alongside paintings of the saint hang works that seem to have nothing to do with Francis. The curator, Roksana Gawrońska, said on Radio Wnet that some of the artists were probably not thinking of him at all, yet their works fit the exhibition’s narrative well; as an example, Radio Wnet gives a painting by Józef Chełmoński, which visitors are meant to see here through the lens of Franciscan spirituality. “Gość Niedzielny” names his “Pejzaż z krzyżem” (Landscape with a Cross) of 1905.

Some threads are shown indirectly. The legend of how Francis, fighting temptation, threw himself into a rose bush is evoked by a contemporary painting by Wiesław Szamborski of a large rose, with no figure of the saint. A 15th-century chest from Wawel Royal Castle, in turn, is meant to convey the atmosphere of the wealthy merchant’s house in which Francis grew up. The oldest objects are Romanesque sculptures and old coins from the 12th and 13th centuries, and the most recent of the works named in the press, Józef Wilkoń’s “Kapliczka z ptakami” (Wayside Shrine with Birds), dates from 2023.

Works worth looking out for:

• An alms box from about 1400 (National Museum in Warsaw) - it stands in the part about his youth in Assisi; “Gość Niedzielny” reads it as a sign of a double fate: the merchant who amasses wealth and the poor man who asks for alms.
• Jan Matejko, “Saint Louis, King of France, Setting Out on a Crusade”, 1876 - a sketch from the District Museum in Toruń, evoking the young Francis’s dreams of knighthood.
• Jacek Malczewski, “Saint Francis”, 1908 - a canvas lent by the National Museum in Warsaw. Culture.pl describes it as a painting in which the artist, dressed in a Franciscan habit, is surrounded by the Parcae, a chimera, a schoolgirl and fauns; one of the lectures accompanying the exhibition is devoted to this very painting.
• Antoni Michalak, “The Stigmatisation of Saint Francis”, 1927 - a large painting lent especially for this exhibition by St Anthony’s parish in Gdynia, in the “Alter Christus” room.
• Antoni Rząsa, “Saint Francis”, 1960-1961 - a wood sculpture which, according to the museum, is shown almost exclusively in Zakopane.

The museum also announces Tadeusz Boruta’s cycle of canvases “Saint Francis Places Himself under the Protection of the Church”, represented by three or four paintings, and 13th-century ducats. According to “Gość Niedzielny”, the route ends with Maria Hiszpańska-Neumann’s acrylic painting “The Sleeping Disciples” from 1977. The museum gives neither the number of exhibits nor the number of rooms.

Context

Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, was born in 1181 or 1182 into the family of an Umbrian merchant and as a young man fought in Assisi’s war with Perugia. In 1205 he underwent a conversion: he renounced his wealth, served lepers and gathered brothers around him, from whom grew the Franciscan order and, indirectly, the Poor Clares and the tertiaries. At Greccio he arranged the first live Christmas nativity scene, the subject of two December lectures. He died on 3 October 1226 at the Portiuncula, and less than two years later Pope Gregory IX declared him a saint.

“Poverello” is Italian for “little poor man”; as PAP (the Polish Press Agency) points out, this is what Francis called himself in his “Testament” of 1226. In 1979 he was proclaimed patron saint of ecologists, as the museum recalls in its description of the lesson for schools. The museum’s director, Piotr Kopszak, told KAI (the Catholic Information Agency) that the 19th century saw a marked revival of interest in Francis; indeed, many works in the exhibition date from the second half of the 19th and the early 20th century, among them Matejko’s sketch of 1876, Chełmoński’s painting of 1905 and Malczewski’s of 1908, and Jan Stanisławski’s landscapes of Italian towns.

Tickets and time

• Where: in the Warsaw Archdiocese Museum’s building at ul. Dziekania 1, in the Old Town, between the Royal Castle and St John’s Archcathedral. The museum does not say in which part of the building the exhibition is. Directions are on the Warsaw Archdiocese Museum profile.
• Ticket: the price list has no separate ticket for “Poverello”. The exhibition is covered by the cheaper joint ticket for temporary exhibitions, from which the price list excludes only the Józef Czapski exhibition, and by the ticket for the whole museum, that is, the permanent exhibition and all temporary ones: standard ticket 40 PLN (about 9 EUR), reduced 25 PLN (about 6 EUR). The price of the cheaper ticket is on the museum’s price list.
• Which ticket to choose: if you also want to see Czapski and the permanent collection, buy the ticket for the whole museum; for “Poverello” and the Szamborski exhibition alone, the temporary-exhibitions ticket is enough.
• In the evening, with a lecture: a ticket to a lecture in the accompanying series lets you visit the exhibition in the evening on the day of the lecture, later than the usual opening hours; details are in the Accompanying events section.
• When: the museum is closed on Mondays; current opening hours and the list of holidays on which the museum is closed are on its opening hours page. The exhibition runs through All Saints’ Day and Christmas, so in those weeks check that page before you set out.
• Buying: at the desk or online in the museum’s shop; the museum accepts card, bank transfer and BLIK.
• Warsaw Pass covers all the museum’s exhibitions, permanent and temporary; the card must be registered at the desk.
• Access: lift, ramp and wheelchair-accessible toilets.
• How long: the museum does not say. The route has several thematic zones and exhibits from more than twenty collections, so allow at least an hour for the exhibition alone, and about two with the permanent exhibition and Czapski.
• Who it’s for: the museum addresses the exhibition above all to lovers of painting, sculpture and graphic art, not only to believers. It is a good choice for anyone who wants to see, in a single exhibition, how Polish artists from Matejko and Chełmoński to Szamborski and Wilkoń took up one subject. For schools, the museum runs lessons in the exhibition for grades 6-8 and secondary schools.
• Who can skip it: anyone looking for a survey of a single artist’s work, and anyone not interested in a religious story: this is a thematic exhibition, and its route leads through the successive stages of the saint’s spiritual path.

Accompanying events

Lectures in the series accompanying the exhibition last about an hour. A lecture ticket costs 25 PLN, or 10 PLN with the MAW Annual Ticket (Bilet Roczny MAW), and a pass for the 12 autumn lectures (including two about Czapski) costs 150 PLN; on the day of the lecture, the ticket admits you to “Poverello” until 20:00. The museum reserves the right to change the dates. Full list: lectures page (in Polish).

• 15 December 2026, 17:30 - “The Living Nativity Scene. The Senses in the Experience of Faith”, Fr Andrzej Zając.
• 9 December 2026 (Wednesday), 17:30 - “At the Source of a Tradition. Saint Francis’s Nativity Scene at Greccio”, Dr Ewa Korpysz: details, in Polish
• 1 December 2026, 17:30 - “Franciscan Saints - the Spiritual Children of Saint Francis of Assisi”, Br Grzegorz Filipiuk: details, in Polish
• 26 November 2026 (Thursday), 17:30 - “The Stigmatisation and Ecstasy of Saint Francis”, Prof. Jerzy Miziołek: details, in Polish
• 24 November 2026, 17:30 - “Thought, Memory and Image - How the Franciscan Jubilee Was Celebrated in 1926”, Roksana Gawrońska, the exhibition’s curator: details, in Polish
• 17 November 2026, 17:30 - “Jacek Malczewski’s Saint Francis - a Religious Painting or Modernist Self-Fashioning?”, Prof. Michał Haake: details, in Polish
• 3 November 2026, 17:30 - “Bernardines, Reformati, Franciscans, Capuchins, Friars Minor - Franciscan Branches or Splinters?”, Br Grzegorz Filipiuk: details, in Polish
• 27 October 2026, 17:30 - “Saint Francis - Film Star”, Łukasz Jasina: details, in Polish
• 23 October 2026, 13:00 - curator’s tour with Roksana Gawrońska; an exhibition ticket is required. The museum has yet to announce further dates: details, in Polish
• 20 October 2026, 17:30 - “The Beginnings of the Iconography of Saint Francis. From Berlinghieri to Giotto”, Bishop Michał Janocha: details, in Polish
• 13 October-18 December 2026, Tuesday-Friday mornings - a lesson in the exhibition for grades 6-8 of primary school and for secondary schools, about 60 minutes, 250 PLN per class (up to 25 people); bookings: muzeum@maw.art.pl - details, in Polish

What the press says

Four pieces from the first days, all favourable; they are reports and previews, and there is no critic’s review so far.

• Gość Niedzielny, Warsaw edition (2 October 2026, Tomasz Gołąb): the fullest description of the route, room by room, from the alms box in the Assisi section to Hiszpańska-Neumann’s “The Sleeping Disciples” as a moving finale - article, in Polish
• KAI (4 October 2026, KAI news service): a report after the opening on 1 October, with the museum director Piotr Kopszak on the 19th-century revival of interest in Francis - article, in Polish
• Radio Wnet (30 September 2026, Hanna Tracz): an interview with the curator about works that do not show Francis directly, such as Chełmoński’s painting, and about less obvious objects, such as Szamborski’s rose and the chest from Wawel - article, in Polish
• PAP (30 September 2026, on the dzieje.pl site): a preview that explains the title and stresses that the exhibition sets out to show the saint’s biography, not just a survey of his images - article, in Polish

The curator, Roksana Gawrońska, on Radio Wnet: “I want visitors to discover for themselves why particular objects found their way into this exhibition.”

See also

• “TRAGEDY AND GESTURES. Fugue and Invention in the Painting of Wiesław Szamborski” - a chamber-scale exhibition by the artist whose rose painting also hangs in “Poverello”; covered by the same temporary-exhibitions ticket, on until 15 November 2026.
• “Józef Czapski - L’Humanité / Humanity” - Czapski’s drawings and paintings from the museum’s own collection, until 29 November 2026; requires the ticket for the whole museum.
• The Warsaw Archdiocese Museum’s permanent collection - old sacred art: sculpture, painting, goldsmiths’ work and liturgical vestments, alongside clocks, furniture and portraits.
• “Święty dialog. Sztuka sakralna ze zbiorów Muzeum KUL” (Holy Dialogue. Sacred Art from the KUL Museum Collection) - on the sister site muzea.org.pl (page in Polish): sacred art from the collection of the KUL Museum in the Trinitarian Tower, home of the Lublin Archdiocese Museum, until 31 October 2026.

Museum profile: Warsaw Archdiocese Museum.