A KNIGHT IN THE SERVICE OF ART. HANNA BENESZ IN MEMORIAM (1947–2019)

Hanna Benesz graduated from the Institutes:of Art History and of Applied Linguistics at the Universityof Warsaw. Her whole career launched in 1975 remainedinseparably connected with the National Museum inWarsaw, where she worked at the Gallery of EuropeanArt curating the Flemish and Dutch collections. Shefollowed all the promotion steps: from assistant to curator.Benesz strongly believed that museum curator’s job wasgrounded in a perfect knowledge of the collection. Thanksto her research conducted into the paintings amassed inNational Museum’s storerooms, she successfully attributeda substantial number of works and identified provenance ofmany. She studied iconography applying research methodsworked out by iconology. Moreover, she focused on thepaintings’ technical condition, this occasionally leading tospectacular ‘restorations’, e.g. the identification of a genuinework by Abraham Janssens (ca 1575–1632) the Lamentationof Christ in a forgotten work, previously considered to bea copy. Author and co-author of many exhibitions, shecooperated with museum curators around the world. Herexhibition on Baroque art reached as far as Japan. Benesz’sintention was not only to present the paintings from theNational Museum’s collections through a direct contact ofvisitors with the works, but also in publications, mainly inEnglish and online. As soon as she became curator, togetherwith Maria Kluk she focused on working out the reasonedcatalogue Early Netherlandish, Dutch, Flemish and BelgianPaintings 1494–1983 in the Collections of the NationalMuseum in Warsaw and the Palace at Nieborów. CompleteIllustrated Summary Catalogue, published in 2016. A yearlater, the Catalogue was honoured with the main prize in theSybilla Competition in the category for publications, whilethe King of the Netherlands awarded Hanna Benesz withthe chivalric Order of Orange-Nassau (Oranje-Nassau) of the5th grade; she was decorated with it by the Ambassador ofthe Kingdom of the Netherlands during the 20th CODARTCongress held at the Warsaw Łazienki Palace.Not only was Hanna Benesz an outstanding museum curatorand scholar, but also a trusted friend and a warm empatheticperson, sensitive to other people’s misfortunes.