Dr Anna Sobecka from the Institute of Art History at the Faculty of History of the University of Gdańsk has been awarded the Prize of the Committee for Research on Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
The Presidium of the KNOS had already included the book 'Picturing nature in modern Gdańsk. On the collecting culture of the city' among the outstanding achievements in the discipline of art sciences, and then in a vote of the committee members, it was decided to award dr Anna Sobecka from our university with the prize.
The presentation of the prestigious award will take place on October 28, in Warsaw.
The awarded book is devoted to representations of nature created in Gdańsk in the 17th and 18th centuries while analysing local artistic and scientific collections. The author spent years collecting archival material, searching for Gdańsk works of art both in graphic collections scattered all over Europe and in the warehouses of museums or private collections. Previously undervalued prints or unknown drawings, as well as oil paintings by Gdańsk artists depicting mainly plants and animals, became the basis for reconstructing the collaboration between artists and scientists in former Gdańsk. The cooperation of Hevelius, the Breynes or the Gottwalds with painters, as well as amateur attempts at drawing by scholars and their daughters, became the foundation for the development of collecting in the city. Gdańsk was, especially in the 18th century, an important centre for collecting. Due to the dispersion and destruction of these collections, the memory of their splendour needed to be restored. The book is an attempt to describe the cultural phenomenon of the city along the Motlawa River in the 17th and 18th centuries and to present it in a broader European context.
The publication was published in 2021 by the Gdańsk-based słowo/obraz terytoria publishing house
Promotion of the book in Gdańsk is planned for October.
Congratulations!
