MIECZYSŁAW TRETER (1883–1943): PRECURSOR OF POLISH MUSEOLOGY

Mieczysław Treter is by no means an ordinaryindividual: an art historian, aesthetician, museumpractitioner and theoretician-museologist, an individualof many professions, lecturer, journal editor, member ofnumerous organizations, propagator of Polish art abroad,manager, exhibition organizer. In the interwar period oneof the most influential critics and art theoreticians, amongthe museum circles he was mainly known as the author ofthe recently reissued 1917 publication called ContemporaryMuseums. Museological Study. Beginnings, Types, Essence,and Organization of Museums. Public Museum Collectionsin Poland and Their Future Development.Born on 2 August 1883 in Lvov, in 1904 Mieczysław HenrykTreter started working with the Prince Lubomirski Museumas the scholarship holder of the Lvov Ossolineum. In 1910,he became Curator at the Museum, performing this functionuntil the outbreak of WW I. He participated in the FirstCongress of Polish Museologists, held in Cracow on 4 and5 April 1914. During WW I, he was in Kharkov and Crimea,and it was there that he wrote his most important studyContemporary Museums. In 1917, having moved to Kievhe became involved in the activity of the social movementfor the care of Polish monuments throughout the formerRussian Empire. In 1918, he returned to Lvov, becamemember of the national Eastern Galicia ConservationCircle, and retook the position of the Curator at the PrinceLubomirski Museum, to finally become its Director. On4 February 1922, Mieczysław Treter was appointed Directorof the State Art Collections, the position he retained until1924. In 1926, he became Director of the Society for thePromotion of Polish Art Abroad, whose main task was topromote works of Polish artists in Poland and abroad. Hepassed away in Warsaw on 25 October 1943.Systematizing the theoretical knowledge and the reporton the existing museums in the country deprived of itsstatehood in the book Contemporary Museums createda departure point for its Author, who following Poland’sregaining independence worked out the organization of statecollections. Treter’s proposals were to regulate the position ofPolish museum institutions complicated due to the partitionperiod, for them, while rivaling foreign museums, to becomeelements boosting the young state’s prestige.