COVID-19 update: the Nowa Huta Cultural Centre (home of the Duda-Gracz Gallery) will remain closed until at least the end of June.

Adjacent to the Beksiński Gallery inside the Nowa Huta Cultural Centre, this 210-square-metre gallery exhibits almost 100 works by Jerzy Duda-Gracz (1941-2004) - one of Poland's most important 20th century painters. Although born in Częstochowa and generally associated with Silesia, Duda-Gracz’s daughter had long wanted his works to be on display permanently in Poland's most cultural city. A prolific artist with diverse interests and a vast ouvre, the most representative aspect of Duda-Gracz's highly illustrative paintings is his grotesque, disfigured human caricatures. Portraying what he seems to perceive as a deeply flawed and tragic world, his work is overtly provocative, inciting a strong emotional response in the viewer, but also insightful; through his art he was a sharp critic of humanity's intolerance, hypocrisy, laziness and consumerism, but exposed it with a certain humour. In addition to his more representative works, included in the exhibition are more subtle paintings from his cycles inspired by Chopin's music, or the landscape of the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland.