Crystal(s) of the Zagłębie Region. Glass Designers 1960–2000

Jan Sylwester Drost / Ludwik Fiedorowicz / Bogdan Kupczyk / Józef Podlasek /
Ryszard Serwicki / Maria Słaboń / Zofia Szmyd-Ścisłowicz / Eryka Trzewik-Drost

ul. Garbarska 24, Kraków – 04.08.2021–07.10.2021

The Zagłębie Dąbrowskie region was one of the most important centres of the glass industry in Poland in the post-war period. Products made by the ”Zawiercie” Household Glassworks, the ”Ząbkowice” HG and the ”Staszic” Artistic Glassworks were sold on markets all over the world, often under a different brand name. Their designers remained unnamed and the design achievements of the plants have not yet been reliably worked out and disseminated.

Works by designers from the Silesian Zagłębie region are to be found in few museum collections, while they appear ever more frequently on the antiquarian market and sales portals. However, they are not always properly identified and reliably described. And it is glass, not coal, that is the wealth of Zagłębie Dąbrowskie: crystal glass from the ”Zawiercie” HG, pressed glass – cheaper and therefore more available – from the ”Ząbkowice” HG, and artistic, unique – from the ”Staszic” Artistic Glassworks.

The framework of the project (exhibition) is the years 1960–2000. In 1960, Jan Sylwester Drost, a graduate of the State Higher School of the Arts in Wrocław (now the E. Geppert Academy of Art and Design), was employed at the ”Ząbkowice” HG as a designer. He created a thriving design centre that employed: Bogdan Kupczyk, Eryka Trzewik-Drost, Ryszard Serwicki, and Ludwik Fiedorowicz. In 1967 Józef Podlasek started working at the “Zawiercie” HG, and a few years later Maria Słaboń, who ran the pattern shop for 40 years, and Zofia Szmyd-Ścisłowicz.

The years 1960–2000 were the Golden Age of the Zagłębie glassworks and the extraordinary development of the household glass industry in this region. With the advent of the 21st century, the glassworks began to experience difficulties and were eventually closed.

The exhibition, prepared in cooperation with the Stara Łaźnia Gallery in Zawiercie and the Schoen Palace Museum in Sosnowiec, will feature works from the collections of both institutions, as well as objects borrowed from private collections. Many of them have not been publicly displayed before.

Crystal glass, taken out of cupboards for special occasions after 1960, and pressed glass used every day, will be on one table for the first time.

Curators of the exhibition: Anita Bialic – BB Gallery, Karolina Kindler-Skowronek – Stara Łaźnia Gallery