A large-scale exhibition presenting work of Polish designers of glass over the last 75 years is available at the National Museum in Wrocław from 3 October 2023 to 14 January 2024.

Their artistic activity – extremely rich yet almost unknown – confirms the significant role played by women in the recent history of glass design. Female designers were usually overshadowed by their male colleagues, and only rarely worked as heads of design studios.

Among the women to whom this exhibition is dedicated there are pioneers of post-war glass design, namely Halina Jastrzębowska-Sigmund and Wanda Zawidzka-Manteuffel, followed by the first graduates in glass design at PWSSP (now Academy of Fine Arts) in Wrocław, such as Regina Włodarczyk-Puchała, Eryka Trzewik-Drost, Barbara Urbańska-Miszczyk and Stanisława Paczos.

The generation of designers who started their career in the 1960s and 1970s is represented by works created by Janina Węcewicz-Macek, Maria Słaboń-Kapy, Barbara Kaczmarek-Górska, Ewa Gerczuk-Moskaluk and Lucyna Pijaczewska. The exhibition is concluded by examples of work of artists active after the 1989 transformation, such as Małgorzata Dajewska, Katarzyna Hałas, Agnieszka Leśniak, Agnieszka Bar and Aleksandra Kujawska.

The glass biographies are also a tale and a historical record of the changing expectations of the recipients, subject to a continuous transformation both in the sphere of the private life of individuals and life of society as a whole, which combined with the redirection of needs and rituals has an impact on the iconosphere of private and public interiors, as well as the final shape of the produced objects.

Read more: https://mnwr.pl/en/glass-biographies-polish-women-glass-designers-1945-2020/