Gallerystore.pl, an online art gallery in Poznań that promotes young Polish artists, is marking 17 years with a series of stories from its archives. Published at regular intervals on social media, 17 lat, 17 historii (‘17 years, 17 stories’) begins with the first painting the gallery sold and includes a wedding gift that travelled from Poland to Melbourne.
17 years of selling art online
The first instalment returns to the painting that started it all. In 2009, when Gallerystore.pl was just starting out, Małgorzata Łodygowska’s acrylic painting Jestem piękna_Autoportret (‘I am beautiful_Self-portrait’) found its first collector. Further instalments, released one at a time, reveal stories that even the gallery’s long-standing followers have not heard before.
Alongside the painting sent to Melbourne as a wedding present, the series will feature a collection of works bought in its entirety by a single client the day after it was published online. Another story concerns three two-metre canvases that had to be carried down the stairs of a pre-war apartment building for delivery to a hotel in Lublin, Poland.
‘Over 17 years, we have gathered so many stories: funny, moving and sometimes surprising. We decided to tell them one by one. We wanted this to be a chance to look back on those 17 years together,’ says Joanna Majchrzak, a founder of Gallerystore.pl.
This article deliberately leaves some of those stories untold. Followers of the gallery’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will discover all 17 gradually, as the series is already being published under the heading 17 lat. 17 historii.
The painting most often chosen for Polish homes
Among the figures behind those 17 years, one is particularly revealing: 80 by 80 centimetres. This is the painting size most frequently chosen by Gallerystore.pl customers. Large enough to catch the eye yet adaptable enough for either a broad living-room wall or a small flat, it offers a glimpse of the art people choose to live with.
The preference was established long before today’s interior trends. Its persistence suggests how little some Polish tastes have changed over the gallery’s 17 years.
Relationships that last beyond a sale
The first instalment showed that the series was about more than nostalgia. Artists who had worked with the gallery for years commented on the post about its first sale, recalling their own beginnings and their long relationships with the online platform for young artists.
‘We have always cared about relationships that last for years. With artists, with collectors, with our community. These 17 stories are really 17 examples of why those relationships still matter. That cannot be taken for granted in a sector where customers buy a painting without being able to see it in person, and competition is intense. In those circumstances, a one-off transaction is easier to achieve than a relationship that lasts for years,’ adds Monika Buczkowska, a founder of the online gallery.
Choosing where to hang a painting is part of planning an interior. Find architects, interior designers and interior photographers in the PLNDesign directory.
See also:
- Painted doors open onto an imagined city in a Poznań mural
- Splot honours three cultures in Zduńska Wola, Poland
