A home, not a museum
Furniture, carpets and objects stand where they were, much of it his own design.
Igor123121 — CC BY 4.0 · Igor123121 — CC BY 4.0 · Jeremiah Z. Cockroach — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Archiwald — CC BY-SA 4.0
With time for one, the Wyspiański Museum is broader and more important artistically. But the Mehoffer House offers something entirely different: not a gallery but a preserved home, and that kind of visit is rare. If how the artists of that generation lived interests you, not only what they painted, this is the place.
His major work is in Fribourg Cathedral in Switzerland, not in Poland. But in Kraków his work can be seen in Wawel Cathedral and several churches, and the house itself displays his cartoons and preparatory studies — sometimes more interesting than the finished result, as they reveal how he worked.
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The house of the painter Józef Mehoffer on Krupnicza street, kept by his heirs with its furniture and his work, today a branch of the National Museum. Mehoffer (1869-1946) was among the leading artists of the Young Poland movement alongside Wyspiański, his friend and rival. He specialised in stained glass, and his best-known work is the windows of Fribourg Cathedral in Switzerland, whose competition he won at twenty-five, beating better-known European rivals. What distinguishes the house is that it was never arranged as a museum but remained a home: the furniture, carpets, curtains and objects stand where they were, and much of it he designed himself. You walk in feeling the family has just stepped out. Behind the house is a small garden in which the artist painted, open in season and among the quietest corners in Kraków. The house has a long domestic history before him, which is part of what the museum records.
Furniture, carpets and objects stand where they were, much of it his own design.
The two were at the heart of Young Poland in Kraków around 1900.
Among the quietest corners in Kraków, and where he painted.
Krupnicza street, west of the old town