Upper Silesian Museum
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| Established | 1910 |
|---|---|
| Location | Muzeum Górnośląskie w Bytomiu, pl. Jana III Sobieskiego 2, 41-902 Bytom |
| Coordinates | 50°20′56.36″N 18°55′31.30″E / 50.3489889°N 18.9253611°ECoordinates: 50°20′56.36″N 18°55′31.30″E / 50.3489889°N 18.9253611°E ⧼validator-fatal-error⧽ |
| Type | Art museum, Archaeology museum, Natural history museum, History museum, Ethnographic museum, |
| Collection size | >1.500,000 |
| Director | Iwona Mohl |
| Public transit access | |
| Website | www.bytom.muzeum.pl |
The Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom is a cultural institution operating under the auspices of the Silesian voivodeship local government.There are five curatorial departments: Archaeology, Ethnography, History, Natural History and Art, as well as auxiliary departments, among others, Education or the Promotion and Publishing Department. The museum also has a special library which holds approximately 61,000 volumes. The Museum currently occupies two buildings: the two-winged main building erected in 1929–1930, housing exhibition halls, warehouses, labs and offices, and the building (together with the outbuilding) of the former poviat starost office in Bytom (at ul.W.Korfantego 34). It dates from 1897-1899 and was designed in neo-Gothic style by Walter Kern from Steglitz near Berlin.In 2017, a donation was made thanks to which the collections of the Upper Silesian Museum were enriched with unusual items from the former house of prayer of the Bytom Jews. This unique gift included, inter alia, a collection of over 500 books, the oldest of which were from the 17th century. The collection is the third-largest collection of Hebrew religious books in Poland.☃☃The Upper Silesian Museum is a museum with an autonomous programme.HistoryThe beginnings of the Bytom museum date back to the year 1910, when the Bytom Historical and Museum Society (Beuthener Geschichts-und Museumsverein) was established by a group of enthusiasts of the history of Bytom. The society then established a local museum based on deposits from the private collections of the merchant Simon Macha and teacher Hans Bimler, as well as a collection of city and guild memorabilia, and archival materials donated by the Bytom municipality. This local institution gradually increased in importance, which is demonstrated by the fact that in 1922 an archaeological finds specialist for the Province of Upper Silesian was employed by the city. In 1928, the museum was taken over by the local government of Bytom.Through cooperation and collaboration with the enthusiasts of the city and the region, its own collector’s campaign and purchases of often valuable and substantial collections the museum acquired the status of a regional institution.The seat of the institution had changed many times, before the new museum building was built in the years 1929–1930 according to the design of architects A. Stütz and H. Hettler☃☃. Due to the global economic crisis, the building was only partially completed, the other half was never erected. The ground floor and the basement of the exhibition wing were occupied by the City Savings Bank and the City Public Library. The collections, located in several places, were moved to a new seat in 1931, and the official opening of the Upper Silesian Museum (Oberschlesisches Landesmuseum) took place on October 24, 1932.There were five research departments in the museum: Natural History, Primitive History and Prehistoric Ages, Ethnography and City History, Ethnology and Art, as well as the Museum Library and the archaeological conservation workshop. In addition, the district office for nature protection and a branch of the Archaeological Artefacts Protection Office were located here. The exhibition halls presented numerous permanent exhibitions devoted to the natural history, prehistory, folk and bourgeois culture of Upper Silesia, the history of Bytom, the development of Upper Silesian industry and guild art.Colonnade in the main building of the Upper Silesian MuseumIn 1927, in Katowice, the capital of the Polish part of Upper Silesia (the autonomous Silesian Voivodeship), first museum institution – the Silesian Museum started to be organized.↵Established in 1929, it had to wait for a permanent seat until 1939, when one of the most modern exhibition buildings in Europe was erected. Unfortunately, the outbreak of war made it impossible to organize exhibitions that had been prepared for years, and the new building was soon dismantled by the Germans.The exhibits of the Silesian Museum in Katowice, which was liquidated by the Germans, in October 1939 were transported to Bytom and placed in warehouses. In the years 1943–1944 the most valuable collections (also those from Katowice) were evacuated to the western part of Upper Silesia. As a result of frontline battles, the activities of the board of the Soviet war commissary and looters, the building was damaged, and part of the collection was destroyed and dispersed.The securing works and the restitution action carried out from March 1945 by a group of pre-war employees of the Silesian Museum made it possible to rescue and recover some of the Katowice and Bytom collections. Those collections became the basis for the reactivation of a museum in Bytom, which was to continue the traditions and programme of the pre-war Silesian Museum. On May 10, 1946, the first exhibition devoted to the Silesian Uprisings was organized at the Silesian Museum in Bytom. Permanent exhibitions comprising natural history, archaeology, ethnography, and a gallery of Polish paintings were opened to the public in 1946 and 1947.In 1950, the institution was nationalised and assumed the name: Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom. For many years it served as a regional museum, the central institution of Upper Silesian museology.↵In the years 1992–1999, as a result of an agreement concluded between the Katowice Province Governor of Katowice and the President of the City of Bytom, the museum functioned as an institution financed both by the state and a local government, and in 1999 it was taken over by the self-government of the newly created Silesian Voivodeship.The nature of the huge collections of the Upper Silesian Museum (more than a million objects) has had a direct impact on the activities of the institution, which focuses on both regional and supra-regional problems.Department of ArchaelogyArchaeology Department of the Upper Silesian Museum has the richest, over 350,000 (16,651 inventory items), collection of archaeological relics concerning the past of Silesia within the area of Upper Silesia, spanning the period from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages. The history of the creation of the Department of Archaeology and the creation of a collection of artefacts, which today is quite significant, dates back to 1910. Its development was twofold due to the political situation. On the one hand, in the museum established on the German side, and on the other in the prehistory department of the Silesian Museum, established on the Polish side.In 1922, the Bytom archaeology department played a leading role in the museum structure, thanks to the fact that an independent clerk for the protection of archaeological artefacts for the Opole district was active at the Landesmuseum. This institution had much better conditions for building up collections and a full-time specialist staff.In the Pre-history department of the Silesian Museum, the collection of artefacts began to be compiled only in 1928. Unfortunately, all activities until 1938 were based on expeditions undertaken by employees from other centres. The collections of both departments were combined in 1939 and since then they have been constantly enriched with artefacts from the excavations.The collected artefacts come from various prehistoric periods, from the Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance inclusive, and they number about 360,000 inventory items. The groups of flint artefacts from Blanowice, Dzierżno, Sośnica and Zabrze-Biskupice deserve special attention. The Bronze Age and the Hallstatt period are the most prolifically represented. These collections come from systematic excavations carried out in the settlements and cemeteries of the people of the Lusatian culture such as: Kamieniec, Krzanowice, Przeczyce, Będzin-Łagisza, Łabędy-Przyszówka, Ziemięcice, Tarnowskie Góry-Repecko and Chorula. In the department's collection there is a significant amount of artefacts from these sites – ceramics, tools and ornaments such as temple pendants, diadems, necklaces, greaves, pins and bracelets.A very special artefact is the so-called “panpipe”– a wind musical instrument considered to be the oldest object of this type in Poland. The most valuable collections from the period of Roman influence include artefacts from the cemeteries in Chorula, Zakrzów and Olsztyn. The settlements in Warłów, Chorula and Skoczów-Międzyrzecz as well as the cemeteries in Tychy-Cielmice and Strzemieszyce provided interesting information about the population living in these areas in the early Middle Ages. The late medieval and Renaissance period is well documented, we can observe a constant influx of artefacts coming from the ongoing archaeological excavations of city complexes, especially Bytom. The collection of Gothic and Renaissance tiles deserves special attention.The Department of Archaelogy: • has the only archaeological site archive in the Silesian Voivodeship, • collects artefacts and records data from scientific studies carried out as part of the national programme Archaeological Photo of Poland, • has a workshop for the conservation of archaeological artefacts, which conducts lively activity and cooperates with other museums.The employees of the Upper Silesian Museum Archeology Department are members of the Upper Silesian Branch of the Scientific Association of Polish Archaeologists.Department of EthnographyThe Department of Ethnography of the Upper Silesian Museum has the largest ethnographic collection in Silesia, which includes both exhibits and archival photographs documenting the image of the folk culture of the peasants and workers of Upper Silesia in the 19th and 20th centuries.Its origins can be found primarily in the pre-war collections of the Silesian Museum in Katowice established in 1927, from whose ethnographic collection approximately 3,000 exhibits survived after the war.In 1945, the newly established museum in Bytom took over 401 ethnographic objects from the German Landesmuseum, and together with the Katowice collection began to form a uniform whole, outlining a research and collection developing programme. It covered the entire Upper Silesia within its historical borders shaped by political, social and economic conditions, and it also entailed compiling a cultural inventory of the borderland (e.g. on the border with Małopolska), as well as of the people who came to that area from the eastern lands of the Second Polish Republic after 1945.Among more than 20,000 ethnographic exhibits, there is a rich collection of folk costumes from all sub-regions of Upper Silesia and a collection of fabrics, embroidery, lace and silver ornaments of women’s costume from Cieszyn.Particularly noteworthy is also the nineteenth-century wooden sacred sculpture, with Silesian images of the Sorrowful Christ, and paintings on canvas, glass, board and paper presenting folk iconography images.A separate part of the ethnographic collection is ritual art, which documents the local rituals and customs through such objects as nativity scenes, stars, masks, Christmas carol costumes, Easter eggs or harvest wreaths.While creating the core of the ethnographic collection, a lot of attention was paid to artefacts related to the basic activities of the population, i.e. agriculture, animal husbandry, mining, etc., and the crafts that existed here, such as blacksmithing, plaiting, cooperage, shoemaking, wheelwrighting, and saddlery. The special emphasis, in the 1950s and 1960s, on collecting monuments of material culture made it possible to save unique products and craft tools, and to recreate the disappearing professions, e.g. pottery (purchase of a workshop from Siewierz).A good overall picture of Silesian folk culture was also obtained by collecting traditional residential interiors of Silesians, i.e. furniture, small appliances, ceramic and metal products, and textiles.The richness of ethnographic resources of the Upper Silesian Museum is reflected in the permanent exhibition "The life of the Silesian people in the 19th and 20th centuries". On the area of 800 square meters the life of the Silesian community is presented through family events (wedding, birth, death) combined with the events of the calendar of annual customs and farmyard work. Thus, attempts were made to point out the significant cultural content inherent in this land.The ethnographic archival collections include materials from field research, over 12,000 photographic negatives, a file of folk artists, and audio recordings.Departement of HistoryThe Department of History of the Upper Silesian Museum has a diverse collection of artefacts, the oldest of which date back to the 16th century. The most interesting artefacts are the guild book from Kluczbork, whose oldest entries date back to the end of the 16th century, and the guild book with entries from the years 1765-1799, mainly referring to the guild of blacksmiths from another unidentified city, lying, as it seems in the vicinity of Rybnik. ↵The remaining archival units include 157 manuscripts. All of them entered the museum’s collections in 1987. They were purchased from private hands. From a cursory review of this set of manuscripts it can be concluded that until the outbreak of World War II they were part of the collection of the municipal archives. This is evidenced primarily by the addressers and addressees of most of these letters held today in the museum’s collection, i.e. the Bytom council and the local mayor.Also, numerous cards with testimonies of witnesses in the trials conducted at the town hall and the minutes of the sessions of the municipal tribunal leave no doubt that they are part of the court books. Therefore, they had to be deposited in the town hall rooms for obvious reasons. We have the right to assume that from the fourteenth century (then the city gained full self-government with a municipal tribunal and a city council) in the town hall in the market square – whose medieval foundations were recently discovered during archaeological excavations – documentation of the activities of the local government with the tribunal and the city council was deposited. It is also supported by the fact that in the following centuries even old parchment documents concerning Bytom were preserved here. Some were written in Latin and German, some more were in Czech and the overwhelming majority in Polish. The oldest documents are missing, but the Department of History obtained, among others, a photocopy of a copy of the Bytom foundation document from 1254 and the 14th century Peter’s Pence register from the Bytom deanery from the Vatican Archives.However, the core of the collection are newer items from the 19th century and, predominantly, from the 20th century. An important part of it is a set of artefacts relating to the Silesian uprisings and plebiscites from the years 1919-1921, i.e. a large collection of the Silesian uprisings photos (insurgent units, equipment, weapons, portrait photographs), insurgent uniforms and a rich set of insurgent and veteran banners (of the Association of Silesian Insurgents and the Association of Veterans of the Silesian Uprisings) and the banners of the Singing Societies (the banner of the Singing Society "Jedność” (Unity) in Bytom, the banner of the Singing Society "Jedność” (Unity) in Knurów, the banner of the Singing Society "Jutrzenka” (Dawn) in Pniaki-Bielszowice, the banner of the Society "Ogniwo” (Link) in Katowice).Among the historical heritage objects, iconographic and cartographic artefacts from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries stand out. These are: graphics, maps, plans, photographs and postcards of Silesia and Bytom. In the collection there are photos of old Bytom from the collection of the Bytom collector Simon Macha and photos taken by the famous photographer Max Steckel. The oldest of them come from the second half of the 19th century and show the city in a period of dynamic development, when it began to develop into a large metropolis with approximately 100,000 inhabitants at the turn of the 20th century. This excellent collection is complemented by slightly "younger" postcards, the collection of which is constantly supplemented.Among the numerous city plans, not only the oldest ones deserve attention, but, due to their greater accuracy, also those from the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, as they allow for a precise decision on changes in the course of streets and the state of urban development. The collection of the Department of History also includes a fairly large set of Polish and foreign medals as well as badges and decorations, some of which are artefacts of Silesian phaleristics, including the insurgent ones. The collection which is constantly growing is a collection of Polish civil and military decorations and badges from the interwar period, from the Second World War and from the post-war years. Also noteworthy is a small set of mining and military uniforms.The Department of History also has a collection of Polish posters on socio-political and cultural topics, as well as artefacts related to the post-war history of Bytom in the form of prints, publications, diplomas and banners of various institutions operating in the city.Departement of Natural HistoryThe Department of Natural History of the Upper Silesian Museum has one of the largest natural history collections in Poland. It consists of collections from the Department of Natural History (Naturwissenschaftliche Abteilung) operating in the years 1928-1945 in the Oberschlesisches Landesmuseum (Upper Silesian Museum) in Bytom and from the Department of Natural History of the Silesian Museum in Katowice, which operated in the years 1927-1939. The collections of both department were joined in Bytom at the end of 1939, but were partially destroyed during the war in 1945. After the war, the natural history collections of local museums, mainly from Gliwice, Chorzów, Cieszyn and Pszczyna, as well as from private individuals, were incorporated in the Upper Silesian Museum collection. The collection was enriched with specimens obtained in the course of field research conducted by employees of the department as well as with purchases and donations of private collections.As a result of several decades of collecting activities, the Department of Natural History has become the owner of valuable collections which document in detail the flora and fauna of Upper Silesia and areas of high natural value in Poland and the world. One should mention here the herbarium of vascular plants with over 12,500 sheets and 3,100 species collected in the 19th and 20th centuries, mainly in Upper Silesia and Central Europe, as well as various botanical collections of Eberhard Drescher from Ligota Wielka in the Otmuchów municipality.The collection of insects is much richer, with about 350,000 specimens coming from private collections of, among others, E. Drescher, Antoni Drozda, Frantz Kirsch, Maksymilian E. Krzoski, Hans Nowotny, Paweł H. Raebl, Władysław Rychter, Tadeusz Spaltenstein , Sergius Toll, as well as acquired by employees. It consists mainly of butterflies and beetles, but particularly noteworthy is the large collection of dragonflies, wasps, flies and lacewings. Among them are the oldest preserved entomological collections from Upper Silesia and Mazovia.The ornithological collection, including taxidermy mounts (approx. 700 pcs.), study skins (1100 pcs.), nests (240 pcs.) and eggs (3850 pcs.), consists of exhibits purchased from collectors and specimens successively obtained by employees. The most valuable are the ornithological collections of E. Drescher from Ligota Wielka and Otto Natorp from Mysłowice.↵The department also has small collections of mammals, arachnids and mollusk shells, and a collection of 1000 glass photographic plates from the interwar period documenting the flora and fauna of the region.In recent years, the entomological collections have been enriched with large collections of insects and birds from Borneo and Madagascar.↵The "Amanus 2000" and "Amanus 2001" scientific expeditions to Turkey organized in the years 2000-2001 supplemented the entomological and, partially, herbarium collections by a total of another 20 thousand exhibits.↵Most of the 21,000 plus items in the geological collection are currently deposited at the Faculty of Mining and Geology of the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice. The Department also collects scientific information. The department has at its disposal a file of the Upper Silesian Museum of Avifaunistic Information Bank (BIAMG), which currently has about 30,000 data.The employees of the Department conduct their research within two sections: entomology and ornithology. The department has a high-class taxidermy studio. ↵The employees' achievements include numerous temporary exhibitions presented many times outside the walls of the Upper Silesian Museum throughout the country (such as the exhibition "Insects and People" or the ones about ecology and nest boxes).There are very dynamic natural history societies operating at the Department, gathering a total of about 350 people. These are: the Silesian Entomological Society, the Upper Silesian Ornithological Society, and the Upper Silesian branch of the "pro Natura" Polish Society Of Wildlife Friends. Their members support the employees of the Department in gathering scientific information, artefacts and in the organization of exhibitions.Department od ArtThe Department of Art of the Upper Silesian Museum holds the following collections:Polish painting from the end of the 18th century to the most recent times;European painting of the 16th-20th centuries;Polish drawing of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (including Piotr Michałowski, Witold Wojtkiewicz, Jerzy Hulewicz, Eugeniusz Zak, Tadeusz Kulisiewicz, Henryk Wiciński and members of the Tribe of the Horned Heart);Polish graphics of the 18th and 20th centuries (including Jan Piotr Norblin, Aleksander Orłowski, Michał Płoński, Józef Pankiewicz, Leon Wyczółkowski, Konstanty Brandel, Władysław Skoczylas, Karol Hiller, Halina Chrostowska, Jerzy Panek, Józef Gielniak, Mieczysław Wejman, Jacek Gaj, Jan Lebenstein, Roman Opałka);European graphics of the 16th-20th centuries: Italian school (including Marcantonio Raimondi, Antonio da Trento, Agostino Carracci, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Francesco Bartolozzi), Flemish school (including Hendrick Goltzius, Jan Saenredam), Dutch school (including Jacob van Ruisdael), French school (including Jacques Callot, Robert Nanteuil, Jan Edelinck, Charles François Daubigny), German graphics (including Albrecht Dürer, Hans Leonard Shaüffelein, Max Klinger, Lovis Corinth), English school (including John Dixon, Valentine Green, William W. Ryland, Richard Earlom);modern Polish sculpture (including Jan Szczepkowski, Henryk Kuna, Xawery Dunikowski, Jacek Puget, Stanisław Szukalski);decorative art – a collection of Polish ceramics of the 18th-20th centuries, the wares of Silesian porcelain manufactories of the 18th-19th centuries (Prószków, Glinica, Racibórz, Tułowice, Bolesławiec); blacksmith and locksmith products from the 14th-19th centuries; tin products (second half of the 18th and 19th centuries); artistic castings of Royal Foundry in Gliwice from the 19th century; Polish glass of the 17th-20th centuries and furniture, clocks, textiles, silver, a collection of guild art – mainly paintings and sculptures of the 15th and 16th centuries.The Gallery of Polish painting has a highly representative collection of Polish painting of the last two centuries. What deserves particular attention are the set of portraits of late classicism and the "bourgeois realism" associated with Biedermeier art (Kazimierz Wojniakowski, Karol Schweikart, Józef Rejchan, Alojzy Rejchan), as well as significant examples of the Romantic movement and its continuation in Polish painting of the 19th century (Piotr Michałowski, Artur Grottger).The collection of realistic painting of the second half of the 19th century, distinguished by a high artistic level, is dominated by landscapes, genre painting, portraits, and historical and genre themes (Józef Szermentowski, Józef Chełmoński, Stanisław Masłowski, Maurycy Gottlieb, Wojciech Gerson, Aleksander Gierymski, Jerzy Kossak, Józef Brandt, Henryk Siemiradzki). Among the works of Polish painting at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, we can find the best works representing the main tendencies present in the art of that era – symbolist (Jacek Malczewski, Jan Stanisławski, Stanisław Wyspiański, Władysław Ślewiński, Leon Wyczółkowski) and early expressionist (Konrad Krzyżanowski, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Gustaw Gwozdecki, Wojciech Weiss, Witold Wojtkiewicz).At the beginning of the 20th century, Polish painting began to follow the innovative trends of French art; we can observe this on the example of interesting paintings by such artists in the Museum collections as Józef Pankiewicz and Jan Rubczak.The collection of Polish paintings of the interwar period is also interesting and rich, and includes works by the Formists (Jan Hrynkowski, Leon Dołżycki, Tytus Czyżewski, Henryk Gotlib, Zbigniew Pronaszko), members of the "Rhythm" (Rytm) group (Wacław Borowski, Felicjan Szczęsny Kowarski, Rafał Malczewski), the Kapists and members of other colour groups (Zygmunt Waliszewski, Piotr Potworowski, Hanna Rudzka-Cybisowa, Jerzy Fedkowicz, Karol Larisch), canvases depicting the traditionalism programme of the "Brotherhood of St. Luke" (Bractwo św. Łukasza) (Jeremi Kubicki), "Warsaw School", paintings by Polish painters of broadly understood "École de Paris" (Roman Kramsztyk, Eugeniusz Zak, Eugeniusz Eibisch, Tadeusz Makowski, Władysław Jahl, Maksymilian Fuerring, Zygmunt Menkes) and innovative painting of the "Kraków Group" (including Leopold Lewicki, Bolesław Stawiński, Sasza Blonder).The Upper Silesian Museum has one of the best collections of Polish contemporary art among museums in the country. This collection includes almost all trends and tendencies represented in post-war Polish art (including Jan Berdyszak, Tadeusz Brzozowski, Jan Cybis, Władysław Hasior, Maria Jarema, Tadeusz Kantor, Alfred Lenica, Adam Marczyński, Jadwiga Maziarska, Jerzy Nowosielski, Erna Rosenstein, Artur Nacht-Samborski, Henryk Stażewski, Jonasz Stern, Wacław Taranczewski, Jan Tarasin). Most of the works were collected represent broadly understood expressionist and metaphorical trends, surrealism and figurative quests. A collection of works by representatives of abstract tendencies deserves attention.Compositions that are a manifestation of post-impressionist colourism and its transformation constitute an extensive set of the collection.In this very interesting collection of contemporary Polish art, a prominent place was accorded to the artistic achievements of the 1980s and 1990s (including Marek Chlanda, Tomasz Ciecierski, Edward Dwurnik, Stefan Gierowski, Ryszard Grzyb, Kōji Kamoji, Piotr Kurka, Jarosław Modzelewski, Mikołaj Smoczyński, Marek Sobczyk, Andrzej Szewczyk, Leon Tarasewicz, Tomasz Tatarczyk, Ewa Zawadzka).The Library of the Upper Silesian MuseumGiorgio di Polcenigo Al signor marchese Ridolfo del S.R.I. conte Colloredo, […] per le sue nozze colla signora contessa Claudia de’ signori di Maniago ec.[…] Venezia: nella stamperia Fenzo, 1765The Library of the Upper Silesian Museum in its present shape was established in 1951 on the basis of books left on the site and those restored in 1945 from the Silesian Museum in Katowice, from the Oberschlesische Landesmuseum and from the Secured Book Collection Repository. The museum library collects books and periodicals mainly in the field of archaeology, ethnography, history, natural history, art history and museology. The book collection is available in the reading room, and interlibrary loans are possible. Books come from purchases, from book exchanges and donations. An alphabetical and subject catalogue of books, magazines, maps and exhibition catalogues is available.There are about 61 thousand volumes of scientific literature in the fields represented in the Museum; particularly rich are the collections of books and journals on nature (mainly in the fields of entomology and ornithology), archaeology and Silesia (silesiaca). An interesting part of the collection are publications devoted to Bytom and the Bytom land, such as Chronik der Stadt Beuthen in OberSchlesien by Franz Gramer (Beuthen O / S. 1863) and the complete set of "Mitteilungen des Beuthener Geschichts und Museumsvereins" magazine.The bibliophile collection includes 100 old prints. The oldest print is the work of Zenobius Acciaciolus Theodoriti Cyrensis episcopi de Curatione Grecarum affectionum libri duodecim... published in 1519 in Paris. Two Silesian nature old prints by Caspar Schwenckfeld are interesting: Stirpium et fossilium Silesiae Catalogus... (Lipsiae 1600) and Theoriotropheum Silesiae... (Lignicii 1604), and the work of Fr. Jacek Liberiusz, Jesus Christ Host of Heaven and Earth (Krakow 1669) and a guide to seventeenth-century Europe, Memorabilia Europae, oder Denckwürdige Sachen... (Ulm 1684)The library exchanges museum publications with institutions around the world, has partners in Europe (Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain, Russia, the Czech Republic, Spain, Scandinavian countries), Australia, Asia (China), South America (Brazil, Chile) and the United States and others. The library of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom is a reference library – the books are available in the reading room. Moreover, library and bibliographic information is provided and copies of ordered materials are made. The reading room offers a reference collection of encyclopaedias, lexicons, foreign language dictionaries and various reference books.ExhibitionsThe nature of Upper SilesiaThe nature of Upper Silesia is the name of the permanent exhibition of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom.Selected types of forest environments have been represented in six dioramas on an area of over 150 m². Special care was taken to ensure that the fragments of nature placed behind the glass imitate authentic forest environments. When creating the exhibition, substantial efforts were made not only to match individual species to their appropriate environments, but also to match them to the time of day and season. There is an example of a deciduous forest – oak-hornbeam forest, where among the branches of a tall oak tree, one can observe the daily life of small birds. Daily life, because some of them are singing, some are seeking food and others are sitting by the forest puddle and quenching their thirst. The exhibition also includes species of various insects that are enjoying the benefits of this environment: stag beetles fighting each other, hornets chewing wood to build a nest and many others.To at least outline the processes taking place in nature, in wall dioramas the stages of wood decomposition were presented. One can see an oak trunk from the moment of cutting down to its complete decomposition. The above plant elements are also the backdrop for several animal species. They are ermines, hazel grouses during bathing and buntings at the nest. In another diorama, on the example of selected species of animals, elements of the food pyramid are presented, ranging from hares gnawing raspberry canes, through a hawk attacking a female grouse to ravens tearing carcass. It is worth noting that the exhibits can be viewed not only from the front and side, but also from above.The exhibition also includes a winter diorama with wild boars. The exhibition right next to the entrance is decorated with a cross-section of an 85-year-old pedunculate oak, exceptionally thick for its age. On the wall, in the frames, fragments of fur of large forest mammals are shown, similarly to the tree trunks displayed at the exhibition. This form of exhibition was designed to meet the needs of people with visual impairments. You can see for yourself the difference between the winter and the summer fur of the deer and you can tell which one is more fluffy – the one of the raccoon dog or the fox. Visitors to the exhibition are treated to the sounds of forest birds singing coming from the loudspeakers, and after a while they can find themselves in the centre of the storm with a loud crash of thunder. Thus, this unique exhibition appeals to the viewer's senses of sight, hearing and touch.Edited by Roland Dobosz, Piotr CempulikThe life of the Silesian people in the 19th and 20th centuriesThe life of the Silesian people in the 19th and 20th centuries is the name of the permanent exhibition of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom.The exhibition "The life of the Silesian people in the 19th and 20th centuries" is the third permanent ethnographic exhibition of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom organized in the years 1949–1989. The first, entitled "Folk Culture in Silesia", opened in 1947, supplemented and modernized several times, was presented under a changed title until the 1950s. The second, opened in 1960, was "The Culture of the Silesian people in the 18th and 19th centuries" and it was "the first attempt to look at the cultural phenomena of the Silesian countryside through the prism of museum collections". It consisted of 750 exhibits and several dozen photographs. Renovated several times, it was shown until around 1975.The current exhibition presents the most important areas of life of communities living in villages and industrial settlements in various subregions of Upper Silesia. They are shown through such family events as weddings, births and the growing up of children, as well as annual customs intertwining with one another in accordance with the seasons and economic and professional activities significant in the culture of the Upper Silesian people. For Upper Silesia, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the border from the north was the former Kluczbork poviat, in the east it was Małopolska, in the west it was part of the Opole region up to the city of Nysa, and in the south, the Cieszyn and Bielsko area.This area is divided into two main provinces, formed as a result of a centuries-long process of cultural influences: the southern one, inhabited by people traditionally dealing with agriculture and animal husbandry, and the northern, industrialized one. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries it used to be a rural area with a small percentage of the urban population. In 1871, the urban population here constituted only 18.2% of the total population. It was the dynamic development of industry which transformed the professional structure and caused urbanization processes that changed the northern part of Upper Silesia from rural to urban. A significant part of the rural population, especially the poorer ones, went to work in industry. However, both groups, that is farmers and workers, shared a sense of linguistic and national community as well as a common ethnic and cultural framework, and ties of affinity. Workers living in industrial settlements or cities cultivated and passed down from generation to generation the traditions taken from the countryside, especially in the field of social and spiritual culture, in particular in the field of family and annual customs, beliefs, and even the way of thinking pertinent to the rural community. These relationships were also visible in some areas of material culture, which was reflected in the similar furnishings of residential interiors, both among peasants and workers.It was typical for the owners of smaller farms living in the countryside to start to work in industry. Workers settled in cities and industrial settlements, cultivated small plots of land and raised pigs, goats and poultry. To show this specificity of the region and the differences between the folk culture of the southern and northern provinces, some of the most characteristic areas of folk culture, or some folk customs are illustrated by the example of the most typical sub-regions. Wedding costumes and equipment for young couple, basic activities like shepherding in the Silesian Beskids and work in coal mines in the northern part of Upper Silesia, decorative art of costumes are shown. The exhibition omits such an important area of folk culture as construction, assuming that the Upper Silesian Ethnographic Park in Chorzów presents them in a comprehensive and more perfect way than could be done on a museum exhibition. The exhibition, arranged in specially built-up showcases and podiums, consists of 2045 exhibits, 152 enlargements of archival photographs, mainly from the 1920s and 1930s and many informative texts.Individual stands at the exhibition are named: ↵Wedding in Upper Silesia, Wedding in the Cieszyn Foothills, Child, Spring customs, First spring jobs, markets, fairs, indulgences, Autumn work in the fields and house work, All Souls' Day, Autumn and winter costumes, St. Andrew's Day, Time off from work, Mining, Musical instruments of mining brass bands, Saint Barbara, Folk carving in wood – saints figures, Santa Clauses, Weaving and printing textiles, Embroidery and lace, Christmas Eve in the Silesian Beskids, Christmas carols, Last day of the year, Shrovetide.Edited by Maria KuczyńskaThe Gallery of Polish PaintingThe Gallery of Polish Painting is the name of the permanent exhibition of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom.The Gallery of Polish Painting includes a set of paintings from the beginning of the 19th century to the end of the 1940s. The gallery shows the most valuable and interesting paintings from the Bytom collection. Created since 1945, it has highly representative collections of Polish painting of the last two centuries.Among the paintings presented in the Gallery, a set of portraits of late classicism and "bourgeois realism" related to Biedermeier art (Kazimierz Wojniakowski, K. Szchweikart, Alojzy Rejchan), examples of the romantic trend and its continuation in Polish painting of the 19th century (Piotr Michałowski, Artur Grottger) deserve particular attention.The realistic painting collection of the second half of the 19th century, distinguished by a very good artistic level, is dominated by landscapes, genre paintings, portraits, and historical and genre themes (Józef Szermentowski, Józef Chełmoński, Maurycy Gottlieb, Wojciech Gerson, Józef Brandt, Aleksander Gierymski, Henryk Siemiradzki). Among the paintings of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, tere are the best works representing the main tendencies present in the art of that epoch – symbolist (Jacek Malczewski, Stanisław Wyspiański, Władysław Ślewiński, Leon Wyczółkowski) and early expressionist (Konrad Krzyżanowski, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Gustaw Gwozdecki, Wojciech Weiss, Witold Wojtkiewicz).At the beginning of the 20th century, Polish painting began to follow the innovative trends of French art; (Józef Pankiewicz, Roman Kramsztyk, Jan Rubczak).A collection of paintings of the interwar period, including works by the Formists (Jan Hrynkowski, Leon Dołżycki, Tytus Czyżewski, Zbigniew Pronaszko), members of the "Rytm" (Rhythm) group (Walerian Borowski, Rafał Malczewski, Feliks Szczęsny Kowarski), canvases depicting the traditionalism programme of the „Bractwo św. Łukasza” ("The Brotherhood of St. Luke") (Jeremi Kubicki), the Warsaw school, paintings by Polish painters of the broadly understood „École de Paris" (Eugeniusz Zak, Tadeusz Makowski, Władysław Jahl, Maksymilian Feuerring, Zygmunt Menkes), the Kapists and members of other colour groups (Hanna Rudzka-Cybis, Piotr Potworowski, Zygmunt Waliszewski, Jerzy Fedkowicz, Eugeniusz Eibisch, Karol Larisch) and the innovative painting of the „Grupa Krakowska” („Krakow Group") (Maria Jarema, Leopold Lewicki, Bolesław Stawiński).The post-war years – until the period of socialist realism in Polish art – are represented at the exhibition by, among others, works by Tadeusz Kantor, Erna Rosenstein, Jerzy Skarżyński.☃☃Edited by Tadeusz HadaśReferences☃☃External linksOfficial website☃☃Category:Bytom↵Category:Museums established in 1910↵Category:Art museums established in 1910↵Category:Museums in Silesian Voivodeship↵Category:History museums in Poland↵Category:Art museums and galleries in Poland↵Category:Archaeological museums in Poland↵Category:Ethnographic museums↵Category:Printing press museums↵Category:Military and war museums in Poland↵Category:Natural history museums in Poland↵Category:Buildings and structures in Bytom↵Category:1910 establishments in Germany↵Category:Expressionist architecture↵Category:German architectural styles↵Category:Modernist architecture↵Category:Eclectic architecture↵Category:History of Silesia↵Category:Silesia nd structures in Bytom
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