The Worlds of Małgorzata Pepłowska: An Exhibition of Double-Warp Textiles

In the Orangery of the Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów, an exhibition of double-warp textiles by Małgorzata Pepłowska, a weaver and folk artist from Ruchna near Węgrów, runs 5 November 2026 - 25 November 2026. The museum has gathered in it the artist’s most important textiles from the last several decades, showing everyday life and feasts in the villages around Węgrów, and presents them as part of the Free November programme of the Royal Residences (Darmowy Listopad w Rezydencjach Królewskich).

The Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów on the exhibition (our translation):

Małgorzata Pepłowska was born in Węgrów and for many years has lived in the village of Ruchna, in Węgrów County. She is a recognised folk artist with a remarkable talent in several fields of handicraft and ritual art. She is known not only as an outstanding weaver and maker of unique double-warp textiles - she also creates ritual ornaments made of wafer, tissue-paper flowers and Easter palms. Her work grew up where the cultures of Mazovia and Podlasie meet, and its roots also reach into the family and neighbourly traditions she encountered as early as her childhood.

What to expect

The exhibition is housed in the museum’s Orangery. The museum describes Pepłowska’s textiles as pictures: they show scenes of the everyday life and feasts of the people of the villages around Węgrów and record local traditions, monuments and customs. The description of the video about the exhibition calls them monumental “woven pictures” of the Liwiec Valley and adds local legends, nature and biblical motifs to these subjects.

The exhibition page recalls how the artist arrived at this work. She started in 1978 at the “Cepelia” Podlasie Folk and Art Handicraft Cooperative (Podlaska Spółdzielnia Pracy Rękodzieła Ludowego i Artystycznego) in Węgrów. She returned to weaving at the urging of the Węgrów ethnographer Maria Koc, in a studio at the Węgrów Culture Centre (Węgrowski Ośrodek Kultury), on a loom acquired from the dissolved cooperative. Later she moved to a studio set up next to her family home in Ruchna.

The exhibition page names these works and cycles from her output:

• “Gospodyni” (The Housewife) - her first independent work, a textile from 1980.
• “Moja mała Ojczyzna” (My Little Homeland) - a cycle of twelve textiles made under her first Minister of Culture scholarship in double-warp weaving, awarded to her in 2004.
• “Sceny biblijne - opisanie Świata” (Biblical Scenes - A Description of the World) - a cycle of twelve textiles for which she received a minister’s scholarship in 2018.
• “Piękno polskich ziół” (The Beauty of Polish Herbs) - a cycle of twelve textiles made in 2022 under a further scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.
• “Kapliczki z powiatu węgrowskiego” (Wayside Shrines of Węgrów County) - a cycle of twelve textiles the artist is working on in 2026, also under a ministerial scholarship.

The museum does not say which of these textiles hang in the Orangery, nor how many works the exhibition includes.

The curators of the exhibition are Robert Andrzej Dul and Nela Kokoszka. The exhibition page states that it is a public task co-financed from the budget of the Mazowieckie Voivodeship regional government (Samorząd Województwa Mazowieckiego), and next to the museum’s logo it shows the logos of Akademia Wilanowska and Mazowsze.

The exhibition page on the museum’s website links to a video about the exhibition on YouTube. The video was published by the Studio Akademia Wilanowska channel.

Context

A Polish double-warp textile, according to the Polish Wikipedia, consists of two single layers in contrasting colours which together form the ornament, so the same pattern appears on both sides of the textile in different colours; it is woven from natural woollen yarn. In Węgrów the technique developed after the war thanks to Sister Dominika Bujnowska (1903-1989), a folk weaver of rugs and a winner of the Kolberg Award in 1981. According to the entry of the National Heritage Board of Poland (Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa), her most outstanding pupil was Halina Fijołek, the teacher of Małgorzata Pepłowska.

Double-warp weaving of Węgrów County was entered on the national list of intangible cultural heritage on 12 September 2023. The entry names Małgorzata Pepłowska of Ruchna as the person who still practises the skill and is passing it on to Kornelia Czaplicka-Rychlik. On the artist’s initiative, the tradition of making Christmas ornaments from wafer in the Liwiec Valley was added to the same list on 8 August 2024. The museum calls Pepłowska the only holder of the tradition of wafer cutting from the Mazovia-Podlasie borderland, taken over from the doyenne Czesława Rowicka, and the entry of the National Heritage Board of Poland calls her the only active holder of this tradition in the region.

Małgorzata Pepłowska, née Rychlik, was born on 7 October 1960 in Węgrów. In 2013 she received the Oskar Kolberg Award “Za zasługi dla kultury ludowej” (For Services to Folk Culture), established in 1974 for creators and popularisers of folk culture, and on 29 November 2019 she was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit. Her textiles are in the collections of leading Polish ethnographic museums and in private collections, and they have been shown in New York, in Beijing, in the building of the Polish Senate and in the gallery of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, among other places.

Tickets and time

• Where: in the Orangery of the Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów. Directions are on the museum profile.
• When: the exhibition runs 5 November 2026 - 25 November 2026.
• Ticket: the entry rules are given in the “Tickets and accessibility” box on this page; the exhibition is part of the Free November programme of the Royal Residences and you need to collect a park entry pass. The programme page recommends this exhibition among its temporary exhibitions.
• Hours: the exhibition has its own opening hours. The museum gives them in a separate box on the exhibition page, together with the last entry and the day on which the exhibition is not open.
• How long: the museum gives no visiting time: the “Czas zwiedzania” (visiting time) field on the exhibition page holds the opening hours, and the page does not give the number of textiles. By our editors’ estimate, half an hour to an hour is enough for an exhibition in a single building. Anyone coming for the meeting with the artist and the workshops should add an hour for each of them.
• Who it’s for: anyone interested in folk art, weaving and the traditions of the borderland of Mazovia and Podlasie. The museum invites individual visits. The wafer-ornament workshops are a chance to get to know the artist’s second field, but the number of places is limited.
• Who can skip it: anyone looking for old art at Wilanów. The exhibition shows the work of a contemporary folk artist, made over the last several decades.

Events

The exhibition comes with a meeting with the artist and two sessions of a workshop, all on 14 November 2026. Details are on the page of the events accompanying the exhibition.

• 14 November 2026, 12:00-13:00 - a meeting with the artist about her work and the secrets of the double-warp weaving technique. Venue: the Orangery; free admission.
• 14 November 2026, 13:30-14:30 - “Ozdoby z opłatka” (Wafer Ornaments), a workshop with Małgorzata Pepłowska. Venue: Domek Lanciego (Lanci’s Cottage); free admission, a pass must be collected, places are limited.
• 14 November 2026, 15:00-16:00 - “Ozdoby z opłatka” (Wafer Ornaments), the second session of the workshop with Małgorzata Pepłowska. Venue: Domek Lanciego (Lanci’s Cottage); free admission, a pass must be collected, places are limited.

See also

• Wilanów Palace - the profile of the museum in whose Orangery the exhibition is on.
• The Sobieskis and the Stuarts - The Splendour and Spectre of the Crown
• Rubensiana. Collecting Fascinations in Poland, 17th-21st Centuries

Museum profile: Wilanów Palace.