Krakow in the Works of Anastasiia Kurakova

From 20 October to 31 December 2026 the Museum of Krakow is showing at its Krzysztofory Palace paintings by a Ukrainian artist who lives and works in Krakow. The museum calls the display an artistic intervention: the canvases hang along the route of the permanent exhibition “Krakow from the Beginning, Without End”, and the ordinary ticket for that exhibition covers them.

The Museum of Krakow on the exhibition (our translation of the museum’s Polish text; the museum published no English page for this exhibition):

The works on display are the artist’s painterly view of Krakow, the city where she now lives and works. They do not document the city literally; rather, they record a personal experience of its architecture, light and atmosphere.

The paintings feature both the most recognisable historic sites and places tied to the everyday life and contemporary identity of Krakow. Here the city is neither a static monument nor a closed picture of the past, but a living space in which history coexists with the present, and monumental architecture with everyday life. The season, the weather and the light reveal a different face of it each time.

The works on display are an invitation to look at familiar places with greater attention and curiosity, and to notice their beauty, energy and meanings, which so easily go unnoticed day to day.

What to expect

Do not look for a separate temporary-exhibition room. The museum presents the paintings within the permanent exhibition “Krakow from the Beginning, Without End”, so you come across these present-day views of the city on the way, among the objects that tell its history. A second artistic intervention, devoted to the sculptor Tola Certowicz, runs on the same route at the same time.

The museum gives neither the number of paintings nor their titles, and names no curator. The exhibition page is illustrated with a single painting: a red-brick neo-Gothic church under a billowing pink and blue sky, with passers-by in the foreground. The colour is intense, laid on in broad brushstrokes.

The point of the display lies in the juxtaposition. On the same route as the Lajkonik costume and the Krakow nativity scene of the permanent exhibition, you see how an artist who lives in the city paints it today.

Context

The artist was born in Mariupol in 2000 and studied painting at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kyiv. According to the museum, she has painted since the age of 13, has exhibited since she was 14, and also works under the pseudonym STIA. She calls her own method Emochromism: in it, colour is meant both to express emotion and to build the composition.

The museum also mentions her work as an animator on the 2023 film “The Peasants” (“Chłopi”). It is an adaptation of Władysław Reymont’s novel, directed by DK Welchman and Hugh Welchman, in which filmed scenes were painted over in oils. More than a hundred painters produced some 80,000 frames, and the film was Poland’s Oscar submission, though it did not receive a nomination.

The museum spells the artist’s name in two ways: in the exhibition title as “Anastasii Kurakovej”, in her biography as “Anastasiia Kurkova”. If you are looking for her work online, try both.

The permanent exhibition where the paintings hang has been open since 2022. It tells the history of Krakow through twelve themes: chronologically first, then through legends, inhabitants, customs and crafts.

Tickets and time

• Ticket: admission is included in the ticket for the permanent exhibition “Krakow from the Beginning, Without End”: 34 PLN, 29 PLN reduced, 68 PLN family. There is no separate ticket for the paintings.
• Free Tuesday: admission to the permanent exhibition is free on Tuesdays, and the paintings hang in that very exhibition, so a free Tuesday ticket should cover them. The museum does not say so explicitly. It issues the free tickets at bilety.muzeumkrakowa.pl, and at the ticket desk on the day of the visit while places last (rules on the museum’s website, in Polish ).
• You do not need the Palace Ticket: the combined ticket at 45 PLN (35 PLN reduced) adds the branch’s temporary exhibition to the permanent one. For the paintings alone, the ordinary permanent-exhibition ticket is enough.
• Hours: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-18:00, last entry 17:00 (16:45 for groups), closed on Mondays. The palace is closed on 1 and 11 November and on 24 and 25 December, and open until 14:00 on 18 December.
• The last day is shorter: on Thursday 31 December the permanent exhibition is open only from 10:00 to 15:00. Do not leave your visit to the last afternoon of the year.
• How long: the paintings alone take between a quarter of an hour and half an hour, but you reach them by following the route of the permanent exhibition. Allow about two hours for the whole visit.
• Who it is for: visitors who are going to the city-history exhibition anyway, and anyone following young Ukrainian art in Krakow. Skip a separate trip just for the paintings if you already know the permanent exhibition and this artist’s work does not interest you.
• In English: the exhibition page exists only in Polish. The museum does not say whether the labels next to the paintings have an English version.

See also

• Krzysztofory Palace - the permanent exhibition “Krakow from the Beginning, Without End” - the exhibition along whose route the paintings hang; a description of the route and tips for the visit.
• “A View of the Krakowianki - Tola Certowicz” - the second artistic intervention in the same permanent exhibition, until 3 January 2027, on the same ticket. Krakow seen through the letters of a sculptor who came here to study more than a hundred years ago.
• “Under a Knitted Sky - Installation” - in the same palace until 26 February 2027: a crocheted sunshade made by more than a hundred people from a Krakow knitting group.
• “Hotel Forum” - at the Podgórze Museum, another Museum of Krakow branch, until 10 January 2027. Another view of the present-day city: a brutalist hotel on the Vistula told through its former staff.

Opening hours and current information are on the exhibition page on the Museum of Krakow’s website (in Polish).

Museum profile: Krzysztofory Palace - Museum of Krakow .