The main part of the modern art collection are the works of art made by Polish artists in France. That kind of collection character was determined by a marvellous gift, which was donated by Franciszek Prochaska (1891-1972) to the Historical Museum in Sanok.
The artist, who came from Sanok, after short studies in The Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow under the supervision of Józef Pankiewicz and participation in the First World War in Józef Piłsudski’s legions, moved to France as a military attache in 1920. Józef Pankiewicz had a basic influence on Franciszek Prochaska, when we talk about forming his painting in the convention of painting in which the colour is decisive (the colourists’ painting). Apart from the painting, Prochaska was also interested in graphics, like: woodcut, cooperplate and etching.
After the Second World War he opened a small printing house with a handy-fold up type and he published books with a beautiful structure and in small bibliophile editions, which generally were ilustrated by his own graphics. His art room in Rue Campagne Premiere on Montparnasse in Paris was visisted by many artists from the so-called Polish “colony”, which comprises the artists who were permanently connected with France. He was also visited by young people, who had visited the world capital of art. Józef Pankiewicz, Jan Wacław Zawadowski (1891-1982), Ludwik Lille (1897-1957) were the artists who were in the circle of his close friends. Some of the exhibits he gifted to the National Museum in Warsaw, and some of them he donated the Historical Museum in Sanok in 1963.
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