Zachęta – National Gallery of Art

curator: Jędrzej Zakrzewski
artists: Krystyna Wojtyna-Drouet, Alexander Cabeza-Trigg, Agnieszka Grodzińska, Maria Oblicka
archival project: Karolina Vyšata
collaboration: Julia Ciunowicz, Michalina Sobierajska, Jędrzej Sokołowski

The solo presentation of Krystyna Wojtyna-Drouet's works is the result of the artist’s long-standing, deeply intuitive relationship with material and craft. The exhibition brings together tapestry textiles, sketches, dyeing recipes and archival materials, revealing the processual nature of her practice, grounded in attentive observation and improvisation. A key point of reference within the exhibition is Uliczka (1962) — a work that marked a breakthrough both in the artist’s career and in the history of the Polish school of textile art.

Wojtyna-Drouet’s works emerge from a tender observation of the world, shaped by a sensitivity to sensations and emotions. They are intended to bring viewers a sense of joy comparable to that experienced by the artist herself in the act of weaving. For Wojtyna-Drouet, craft becomes a way of inhabiting the world — performed through the repetitive cycle of stretching the warp, dyeing the wool, daily weaving, and removing finished tapestries from the loom.

works from the collections: National Museum in Warsaw, Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Museum of Kurpie Culture in Ostrołęka and artist's collection

Krystyna Wojtyna-Drouet (b. 1926) is a visual artist and a representative of the first generation of the Polish school of textile art. From 1946 to 1953, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where she received her diploma in 1953 under Professor Eleonora Plutyńska. From 1962 onwards, she participated in the 1st, 4th and 5th International Tapestry Biennial in Lausanne. In 1975, she took part in the International Triennial of Tapestry in Łódź, and in 1978 in the International Quadriennial of Decorative Art in Erfurt. Her works have been exhibited in Poland and internationally, including in Oslo, Leipzig, Buenos Aires, Havana, Chicago and Cairo. Wojtyna-Drouet has created over 320 textile works. Her tapestries are held in major public collections, including the National Museum in Warsaw, the Musées d’Angers in France, the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the United States, as well as in private collections in Poland and abroad.

^{Krystyna Wojtyna-Drouet in her studio, 1960s, photograph from the artist's archive}