Kazimierz Malinowski – Museum Professional

Muz., 2017(58): 306-318 Rocznik, eISSN 2391-4815 received – 03.2017 reviewed – 03.2017 accepted – 04.2017 DOI: 10.5604/01.3001.0010.9607 KAZIMIERZ MALINOWSKI – MUSEUM PROFESSIONAL Gerard Radecki National Museum in Poznań The year 2017 marked the 110th anniversary of the birth the most important specialist periodical in Poland, au- of Professor Kazimierz Malinowski and the 40th anniversa- thor of the first monograph about the most outstanding ry of his death, while in June 2016 half a century passed representatives of Polish museology2 and a museological from the time when he was once again appointed direc- textbook,3activist and member of several commissions of tor of the National Museum in Poznań. All those circum- international museum and conservation organisations, stances require that we recall this person of great merit and, finally, conservator and professor at the Nicolaus for Polish museology and the Poznań Museum. The title Copernicus University in Toruń. Although Malinowski was is a paraphrase of that of an article written by Kazimierz with all certainty a member of a narrow group of the most Malinowski: Michał Walicki – muzeolog, published in the relevant representatives of Polish post-war museology, to- “Muzealnictwo” periodical and dedicated to the famous day he remains almost totally forgottten. The virtually com- historian of art and expert on Gothic visual arts in Poland1. plete absence of his name in museum daily life determines Walicki is less known as a museum professional and even also the unsatisfactory state of research on his profession- less as Malinowski’s mentor, but if one were attempt to al biography, even if only within the domain of museology briefly define the entire spectrum of the latter’s activity – the second essential domain of his activity was art con- in a few words they would comprise the today rather ne- servation – and requires to be thoroughly examined. Many glected term: “museum professional”, which appears to be opinions or assessments featured below, therefore, should the most capacious and adequate. The museological con- be, upon the current level of research, treated as sugges- text makes it possible to present Kazimierz Malinowski from tions and hypotheses, which must be subjected to further the simultaneous perspective of several spheres of his ac- verification. This is the reason why in the presented sketch tivity, i.e. as a: the apparently most prominent traces of the activity of this • museum professional sensu stricto, in other words, on the Poznań museums professional have been marked only cur- one hand, a researcher perceiving museology as a separate sorily. scientific discipline encompassing all problems associated Kazimierz Malinowski was born in a merchant’s family on with museum studies, but on the other hand as a practi- 28 January 1907 in Poznań,4 After graduating in 1925 from cian working in a museum and taking part in the life of the the local renowned Mary Magdalene Gymnasium he stud- museum milieu in the widest possible meaning of the term, ied history of art and, as a side subject, classical archaeol- • propagator of the role played by museums as institutions ogy5 at Poznań University. Student of Rev. Professor Szczęsny open to the public, which, in turn, indicates the topical na- Dettloff, regarded as the father of the history of art and one ture of Malinowski’s postulates as regards present-day re- of the then most outstanding representatives of that disci- flections on functions fulfilled by museums, pline in Poland. Biographers of Professor Dettloff accentu- • long-term director of the National Museum in Poznań, ate his proclivity for social work but also love of music,6and it a true visionary and curator of the institution’s new pro- quite likely that thanks to his vivid personality both passions gramme, which up to this day clearly contains numerous left their imprint also upon Kazimierz Malinowski. In 1933 tangible traces of his activity. Malinowski graduated from Poznań University as a doctor It is impossible to mention in a single sentence all the ac- of philosophy and devoted the following two years to fur- complishments of Kazimierz Malinowski, director and cre- ther museological studies; as a scholarship student of the ator of the preserved structure of the Poznań Museum, National Culture Fund7 he toured London, Belgium, The initiator and editor of “Studia Muzealne”, published to Netherlands and Italy8 but stayed the longest in Vienna and this day, as well as the ”Muzealnictwo” annual, currently Paris, where he studied at École du Louvre, which in 1882 306 MUZEALNICTWO 58 polish dictionary of museum curators 1. Kazimierz Malinowski, PhD (first on the left) with Professors: Roman Pollak, Wojsław Molè and Władysław Tomkiewicz during a conference devoted to Renaissance art in the National Museum in Poznań in 1952 opened the first museology course in the world,9 in 1935 resulted in the realisation at the Institute for the In 1935, while in Paris, Malinowski encountered the Propaganda of Art of the famous “Polish Gothic Art” exhi- newest trends in the development of museology and could bition, with Walicki as its prime initiator. In 1936 Dettloff have made the acquaintance of Georges Henri Rivière, at arranged an exposition presenting mediaeval art at the the time assistant of Paul Rivet, director of the Parisian Museum of Greater Poland. Studies on the art of the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro – the first museum in Middle Ages became a foundation of amiable relations be- the world that could be described as anthropological and tween the two eminent experts on that epoch and it is pos- whose beginnings in 1878 were connected with the organ- sible that they met upon the occasion of the Poznań exhibi- isation of the World Exposition Universelle in Paris.10 It was tion.12 Dettloff was interested in the careers of his students exactly at the time of Malinowski’s stay that Paris was pre- after their graduation, and even showed concern for their paring itself for a successive Exposition Universelle (1937). adequate financial support by often finding them suitable The old Trocadéro Museum was to be replaced by the new employment.13 In turn, at the time Walicki was looking for Palais de Chaillot complex, which housed the equally new a person to organise the so-called educational service at the Musée de l’Homme, with Rivet as director, as well as Musée National Museum in Warsaw and it is highly likely that it national des Arts et Traditions Populaires, with Rivière as was Dettloff who recommended Malinowski, a young and the newly appointed director; after the Second World War talented historian of art who had just graduated in museol- the latter became the first chairman of the International ogy and had recently returned to Poland. Council of Museums (ICOM), established by UNESCO, and It is also possible that Walicki and Malinowski met al- proved to be a great reformer of world museology.11 ready earlier. At any rate, the concurrence of their views During the same period, after the completion of the new about the need for a social impact of museums remains as- building of the National Museum in Warsaw (1936), the au- tonishing. Walicki was probably familiar with Malinowski’s thorities of the Polish capital appointed Stanisław Lorentz postulates from the mid-1930s, expressed in articles accen- as its director. His co-workers included Michał Walicki, his- tuating the significance of publishing material dealing with torian of art, who in 1929, after graduating from Warsaw pedagogical methodology concerning museums as scientific University, perfected his knowledge in the course of scien- and pedagogical centres,14 and with this purpose in mind tific trips to, i.a. Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany. postulating the realisation of projects of special lecture halls Walicki became deputy director at the Warsaw National outfitted with audio-visual equipment. In turn, Walicki at Museum, agreed to be head of the Painting Gallery, the same time praised Service Educatif, organised in 1922 and in the following years created the first exposition of at Musée de Cinquantenaire in Brussels, which apart Polish mediaeval art. It was precisely those interests that from organising trips to the Museum and holding courses www.muzealnictworocznik.com MUZEALNICTWO 58 307 introduced on a large scale film projections as a sui generis Nonetheless, already in 1947, Malinowski, who must didactic aid.15 Fascinated by the Belgian Museum, in 1933 have previously made his access to creating a new politi- Walicki described it in his article: Społeczno-wychowawczo cal reality in Poland, came to Poznań to accept the func- i oświatowa rola nauk humanistycznych, a fact years later tion of head of the Department of Culture and Art at the recalled by Malinowski.16 Emphasising the theory and so- Voivodeship Office. As a newly appointed civil servant cio-educational praxis of museum institutions Walicki indi- but also a music lover, he was one of the founders of the cated that it is the outcome of the attitude of contemporary Poznań Philharmonic, together with another outstanding museology towards the needs of the general public.17 The historian of art, conservator, and museum professional Museum in Brussels, designed at the turn of the nineteenth Zdzisław Kępiński.23 From that time Malinowski’s profes- century and situated in a fragment of the Cinquantenaire sional life was to be incessantly entwined with Kępiński’s, complex, was initially to be a Museum of the World, pre- also regarding the Poznań Museum. Probably the basic rea- senting the cultural and civilizational accomplishments of son for his return to Poznań was the not so distant per- particular states and nations [including Polish lands], and spective of becoming director of the Museum of Greater even a vision of the progress of mankind uniting in organ- Poland,24 to which in 1948 Malinowski became firmly at- isations of international cooperation.18 This optimistic con- tached for almost the rest of his days (with the exception ception was significantly verified after World War I, and the of a 10-year long interval in 1956–1966).

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