August Zamoyski Museum in Jabłoń

Practical info

What to expect

August Zamoyski (1893-1970) was one of the outstanding Polish sculptors of the first half of the twentieth century, and this is the only museum in Poland devoted entirely to him. He was born here, in the village of Jabłoń in the far north of the Lublin region, and returned to the family estate from Berlin, Zakopane, Paris and Brazil. The museum grew out of a schoolroom: a memorial room opened on 5 November 1994 in the local agricultural school’s boarding house, filled by pupils and teachers with keepsakes and villagers’ recollections. It moved to the present site in 2003, became a museum on 18 September 2011 and reopened in converted rooms on 23 May 2021.

The building is part of the story: a czworak, the kind of estate cottage built for four farmhand families, later the village cultural centre, restored with regional development funding. Inside are family mementoes and an archive of photographs, letters, estate documents and the sculptor’s long correspondence with the people of Jabłoń, plus recorded interviews. Much of it surfaced in 2009 in the attic of the old steward’s house, and that discovery turned a memorial room into a museum; in 2008 Zamoyski’s French admirers sent the village the first cast of one of his works, a portrait of the actress Maria Brydzińska.

The display follows the three phases the museum sets out: the formist years (1918-1924), with the limewood head of Roger Raczyński; the realist period (1924-1950), with the Venus and the black granite head of a village girl, Wierka; and the late new expressionism (1950-1970), ending in the monument to Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha and an Ascension left unfinished in marble. Running through it is the other Zamoyski, the horseman, swimmer and cyclist who rode from Paris to Zakopane in twenty-one days in 1925.

Tips

The museum opens Tuesday to Friday from 10.00 to 16.00 and at weekends from 12.00 to 18.00; Monday is not on the timetable. No price list is published, so ask about admission before you set out. The staff explicitly invite visitors to get in touch and plan the visit with them, by telephone on 508 323 005 (director Barbara Wikło) or 603 756 459, or by e-mail at muzeum@augustzamoyski.eu. School parties and organised groups can book a museum lesson on the artist’s life and work, institutions can borrow a travelling biographical exhibition of fourteen roll-up panels, and the book Zamoyscy w Jabłoniu is sold on site. Late May is the liveliest moment of the year: the twenty-first May Meetings with August Zamoyski filled 23 and 24 May 2026 with a cycle rally, an exhibition of local artists in the palace orangery and a play.

Getting there

The museum stands at ul. Augusta Zamoyskiego 9A in Jabłoń, postcode 21-205, in Parczew county in the northern part of the Lublin voivodeship, a short distance from the town of Parczew and well off the main tourist routes. It occupies a former estate building, so the museum, the neo-Gothic palace in the English manner and the surrounding park all sit within one walk of the same address. The museum’s own site names no bus or rail connections, so a car is the straightforward option and a phone call ahead is sensible if you travel by public transport.

Nearby museums

The obvious companion is the Zamoyski Museum in Kozłówka, a partner in the Jabłoń conversion and the fullest portrait of the family in the region. North east lies the synagogue complex museum in Włodawa, the far point of the May cycle rally, while the Museum of Southern Podlasie covers this borderland corner.