Dekoma as a partner of Krystyna Wojtyna Drouet’s exhibition

The works of Krystyna Wojtyna Drouet, who turns one hundred in 2026, are characterised by an experimental approach to form and material, with a strong focus on the plasticity and texture of the weave – a feature shared with many other post war Polish textile artists. Graduates of Eleonora Plutyńska’s studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw created their textiles entirely by hand, using unconventional materials such as partially degreased, hand spun sheep’s wool, hemp, and sisal. Textiles that pushed the boundaries of the traditional medium brought international success to the Polish delegation at the First Lausanne International Tapestry Biennial in 1962.

The weaving loom has been Wojtyna Drouet’s primary tool since she graduated in 1953. At the heart of her artistic practice lies the weaving process, regarded as a meditative act. The artist selects natural, partially non degreased mountain sheep’s wool and dyes it following traditional methods entrusted to her by Wanda Szczepanowska. Her tapestries and kilims are created without any prior technical design, guided instead by intuition and spontaneity. She does not regard weaving as the execution of a predetermined plan bound by imposed rules or specific technical solutions. It is a ceremonial repetition of the same actions: stretching the warp, dyeing the wool, daily weaving, and removing the finished tapestries from the loom, paired with a mindful attunement to the material, which in a sense chooses its own final form.

The exhibition presents a selection of 20 works by the artist, created between 1953 and 2018 – her most important pieces held in museum collections, complemented by lesser known tapestries from her private collection. Large scale works, including “Alleyway” (1962), created for the Lausanne Biennial, and the later “Blooming Hills” (1978), commissioned privately, are exhibited for the first time in over twenty years. The intention of curator Jędrzej Zakrzewski was to show the formal and stylistic transformations in Krystyna Wojtyna Drouet’s works – from figuration to abstraction and finally to the poetic works of her later years.

The textiles we supplied were employed in the exhibition’s display arrangement, created by the designers from the Supergirls Do Design studio: Marta Szostek, Matylda Halkowicz, and Natalia Wojciechowska. Six metre long curtains made of the white Foga fabric divided one of Zachęta’s exhibition halls into smaller sections and partially covered its walls, becoming a neutral, subtle backdrop for Krystyna Wojtyna Drouet’s colourful, raw textiles. In turn, curtains crafted from the peach coloured woven velour Henry were used to separate and acoustically soften the screening room for the documentary film about the artist. In line with the safety regulations applicable in public venues, both fabrics are woven from flame retardant yarn.

The exhibition also features objects documenting the artist’s creative process: dyeing recipes, notes, fabric samples illustrating various weaving techniques, designs for industrial textiles, and a collection of her own homespun garments. Traces of a craft centred way of living, seamlessly woven into the sphere of art, emerge in the works of contemporary artists inspired by Wojtyna Drouet’s works: Agnieszka Grodzińska, Maria Oblicka, and Alexander Cabeza-Trigg. The exhibition is accompanied by a book: a collection of research essays and archival materials, ranging from natural dyeing recipes to documentation of the artist’s private travels around the world. The book is the outcome of an archival project carried out by the Zachęta team in 2025.
Krystyna Wojtyna Drouet’s exhibition represents a meaningful chapter in Zachęta’s own history, where artistic textiles have been presented since the immediate post war period, serving as a reflection of the evolving landscape of Polish art throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

The exhibition will be on display until 4 April 2026.
We are proud that our textiles have become the setting for the work of one of the most important Polish artists working in the field of artistic textiles. We provided them to Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, one of Poland’s most prestigious and recognisable cultural institutions, as part of our cultural support programme. More details about our initiatives in this domain can be found here.