National Museum in Poznań
The National Museum in Poznań (Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu) is a large state-owned museum in Poland. It has extensive collections of Polish painting from the 16th century and also houses foreign paintings (Italian, Spanish, Dutch and German), as well as numismatic items and a gallery of applied arts.
The museum began in 1857 as the Museum of Polish and Slavic Antiquities. It was renamed several times: Provincial Museum of Posen in 1894 and Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in 1902. The historic south wing was built in 1904 and designed by Carl Hinckeldyen.
During World War II the building was damaged and much of the collection was looted by German forces. After the war, many works were returned or recovered by Poland. In the 1960s–70s a plan for a new north wing was drawn by architect Marian Trzaska, and in the 1990s it was redesigned by interior designer Witold Gyurkovich. The north wing opened to the public in 2001.
Today the museum has seven galleries. They cover Antiquity, the Middle Ages, Polish Art from the 16th to 18th centuries, and, in the new wing, Polish art from the partitions era to the end of World War II, European/Foreign Painting, Modern Art, and Poster and Graphic Design.
As of 2006, the collection included about 309,569 art objects and 4,119 deposits. The Gallery of Polish Art features works by Jan Matejko, Olga Boznańska, Jacek Malczewski, Stanisław Wyspiański, Leon Wyczółkowski, and Władysław Czachórski. The main building also houses one of Poland’s largest foreign painting galleries, largely from the Raczyński collection.
Location: 9 Karol Marcinkowski Avenues, Poznań, Poland. Director: Wojciech Suchocki. Website: mnp.art.pl.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 05:52 (CET).