Exhibition Portraits of Artists. Prints from the Collection of Adam Broż

February 17 – May 10, 2015

Exhibition Portraits of Artists. Prints from the Collection of Adam Broż provides a chance to see images of the artists whom we know mainly through their own work. In many cases these prints are the only source and records of what they looked like. The exhibition consists of 73 portraits of Italian, German, French and Dutch artists who were active between the early Renaissance and the late Neoclassicim. The Renaissance part of the exhibition presents images of Michelangelo, Donatello, Filippo Brunelleschi and Albrecht Dürer. Baroque is represented mainly by the Dutch artists: Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt van Rijn and Anthony van Dyck, as well as the Italian ones: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and Gianlorenzo Bernini, and the French ones: Charles Le Brun, Robert Nanteuil and Claude Mellan. Amongst the neoclassical artists are Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen. Most of the prints were created by exceptional engravers and are of high artistic value. Some of them have a very interesting provenance. The exhibition at the Royal Castle in Warsaw is the first public presentation of Adam Broż’s collection.

Adam Broż, an art historian, photographer and journalist, linked his private and professional life with Rome, where he has lived since 1965. In the years 1969–1979 he was a secretary of the Fondazione Romana Marchesa J.S. Umiastowska as well as a personal assistant to Emeryk Hutten-Czapski Jr., a distinguished collector who rendered a great service to Polish culture. From 1968 Adam Broż managed the hospice of the Polish Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (later the House of Malta). For his services to the Order of Malta he was awarded the Cross pro Merito Melitensi in 1987 and then the Commander Cross pro Merito Melitensi in 2001. At the same time he successfully pursued his great passion, which was journalism. Many of his articles, including those popularizing art history, were published in the most widely-read periodicals, both at home and abroad. Broż often discussed Polish presence in Italy. He authored many publications about Rome, including the guidebook Rzym po polsku [Rome for the Poles].