Beksiński Gallery in Sanok

The Beksiński family had been linked to Sanok for generations. It was the artist's great-grandfather Mateusz who came here in the 1800s. He founded the boiler manufacturing plant which laid the foundation for the future Autosan carriage and bus factory. Zdzisław's grandfather Władysław was a locally renowned architect, credited with many construction designs. The artist's father Stanisław was a soldier in the Haller's Army (a Polish military contingent created in France in the final period of WWI) and a member of the Sokół Gymnastic Society.

Zdzisław Beksiński was born on 24 February 1929 in Sanok, where he also attended the middle and the secondary school. In 1952 he graduated from the Architecture Department at the Kraków Polytechnic University. He started his professional career in Kraków and continued in Rzeszów and then in Sanok where he always liked to return.

As a young artist, Beksiński pursued photography. He was a highly innovative artist, quickly gaining international recognition. In 1955 he joined the Sanok branch of the Polish Photographic Society. While he was working in Rzeszów he started to draw a lot. His drawings contained many details and he would spend a lot of time creating them. After he came back to Sanok he started to create sculptures and reliefs. In the meantime, he developed an interest in painting. His first works were purchased by the Historical Museum in Sanok in 1964. Four years later, his works were presented in a solo exhibition.

Beksiński's artistic pursuits gained momentum in the 1970s. Soon his works were widely recognised in Europe, partly owing to Piotr Dmochowski, a fan of his work, who collected Beksiński’ s paintings  and promoted the artist's work since 1983.

Because his old family house had to be demolished, in  1977 Beksiński decided to move from Sanok to Warsaw. This is where he continued his artistic work until his tragic death.

In 2005, the world was shocked by the news of the violent murder of Zdzisław Beksiński. In accordance with the artist's will, the Historical Museum in Sanok became the sole heir and acquired a large collection of his paintings and drawings. The exposition, consisting of over 600 exhibits, presents the most fascinating and intriguing works of this artist.

Today the public can admire his works in the new Gallery of Zdzisław Beksiński arranged in the castle which holds the Historical Museum in Sanok. Its southern wing was rebuilt for this purpose and the gallery opened in May 2012. An additional attraction inside is the Artist’s Studio. It provides a peek into his creative mind.

The artist's exhibition is arranged in a chronological order, opening with works from the 1950s and 1960s. These are mainly black and white photographs, paintings on glass, reliefs and sculptures. Moving on, we enter the Artist's Studio from his Warsaw apartment, where he lived and worked for nearly thirty years. The visitors can also view his computer graphics as well as sketches, drawings and prints from various periods. The most important part in the whole exhibition, on display in two rooms, contains his paintings, representing the period of ‘fantastic realism’ and created during the final twenty years of his artistic activity.

The exhibition invariably attracts visitors, especially young people and foreign tourists coming to the Podkarpackie region. It is largely because of Zdzisław Beksiński Gallery that the Sanok museum attracts more and more visitors each year.

For those wishing to find out more about the life of the Beksiński family, we recommend the biographical film The Last Family from 2016.

You can find more information for visitors on the website of the Historical Museum in Sanok.