The Town Museum in Żywiec is located in the Old Castle and the buildings of the former Coachhouse and the Stable. The museum possesses collections in the following departments – history and art, ethnography, archaeology, and nature as well as an archive collection, a library and photographs connected the Żywiec area. We can see the exhibits connected with the history and tradition of the town including the garments of the Żywiec townspeople, the guild relics, the religious art of the region, the exposition of Jan Kazimierz Olpiński’s paintings, the exhibition on the owners of the Żywiec region and the architecture of the Old Castle.

The highlander room, the traditional folk costumes, processing the basic raw materials used in the household, the settlement, the flock tending, gingerbread and toys, the ritual art, the folk art – these are the topics describing the present ethnographic exhibition dedicated to traditional material culture and the art of the Żywiec region highlanders. It is very spacious, well arranged and rich. It reflects the region’s heritage which preserved a lot of elements of the traditional folk culture to the present day.

We can learn about a lot of notions such as the settlement. We can learn how the Vlachs – the migrating shepherds, were using the highlands. They brought a specific type of alpine herding and techniques of animal products’ processing including milk, skins and wool. As a result of an interaction between the shepherds and the farmers those two originally different cultures became symbiotic.

You can also get to know the furnishing and the interior design of the highlander room from the beginning of the 20th century. There are clothes, equipment, household crockery and shepherd’s hut equipment with tools, farming tools, and craftsmen products. We can learn here about the Żywiec toy-making center started in the second half of the 19th century and still existing. The museum collection presents the toys that have been made since the 1950s – birds, horses, cradles, wheelbarrows, carousels, etc. There is also an outstanding exhibition of the ritual art – props connected with the annual holidays primarily the winter holidays (especially “dziady” most attractive winter ritual group). The collection of the folk art is especially interesting and these are old and contemporary sculptures and paintings including glass paintings, there are also paper flowers and embroideries, etc. Many of the artists, whose works are presented here, are very well known in Poland and these are e.g. Józef Hulka, Anna Ficoń and Michał Boczek. You can also find typical instruments for the Beskids region here. Multi-annual co-operation with the folk artists, organizing competitions, and theme-based exhibitions resulted in enriching the museum collection with contemporary works and a substantial number of documents.

Competitions, temporary exhibitions, and publications are the means through which the Museum popularizes and protects the folk culture and art in this region.

Muzeum Miejskie w Żywcu
34-300 Żywiec, ul. Zamkowa 2
tel. (+48) 33 861 21 24, (+48) 609 014 555
e-mail: muzeumzywiec@interia.pl
www.muzeum-zywiec.pl