MARIAN MINICH (1898‒1965)

Marian Minich was born on the 21st December1898 in Baligród near Lesko, died on the 6th of July 1965 inŁódź. For thirty years, excluding the World War II period,he was a director of the Art Museum in Łódź. In 1929, hegraduated from the John Casimir University in Lviv, history ofart faculty. He worked there from 1928, first as an assistantof Professor Władysław Kozicki, then of Professor WładysławPodlacha. In 1932, he defended his doctoral thesis on theoeuvre of Andrzej Grabowski (published in 1957). He wasgranted a university award while still a student for hisstudy The Concept of Art by Wölfflin, whose methodologyinfluenced future exhibition concepts of Marian Minich.From the late 1920s, he was writing as an art critic forLviv newspapers. In 1935, he assumed the position of thedirector of the Art Museum in Łódź (at the time: the J. andK. Bartoszewicz Museum of History and Art). Among hismajor achievements was not only a remarkable expansionof museum collection, but also a transformation of themuseum into an institution devoted exclusively to art, witha significant representation of contemporary art. In theuneasy post-war years, he managed to sustain this direction,both before and after the tightening of cultural policies inthe socialist realism era. In 1948, together with the firstpost-war permanent exhibition, the Art Museum in Łódźopened thanks to him the “Neoplastic Room” by WładysławStrzemiński. Marian Minich was also a persistent defenderof the avant-garde, and strived to make it an integral partof conceptual programme for any art museum. From theyears 1946/1947 to 1951/1952, he taught art history at theUniversity of Łódź. His professional experience as a museumdirector has been described by him in a book Szalona galeria(published in 1963); his article O nową organizację muzeówsztuki (1966) he devoted to museum issues.