• The branches of the National Maritime Museum are open from 10:00 till 13:00 on 30/03/2024. The Vistula Lagoon Museum is closed that day. Between 31/03/2024-1/04/2024 (Easter) all branches of the NMM are closed
• The Arsenal of the Granaries on Ołowianka Island is closed until May 12, 2024, due to preparations for the new temporary exhibition
• The "Motława" ferry does not operate due to the river embankment renovation until further notice
• The Crane remains closed to visitors due to renovations - read

Follow Your Dream

This year we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Joseph Conrad’s birth. The Polish Maritime Museum in Gdańsk, wanting to make its contribution, was developing a painting exhibition with works inspired by his books. The painter is Elżbieta Tęgowska, an artist who from early youth has been fascinated by the writer. She painted a series of paintings entitled after quotations from Conrad’s three books “Heart of Darkness”, “Almayer’s Folly” and “Lord Jim”.

Her works are not just an illustrative interpretation of the writer’s legacy. The direct translation of Conrad’s books does not seem to be possible. The artist in her half-abstract and half-expressive art tries to show the very complex and often dramatic emotions which she experienced while reading Conrad’s books. Hence the immediately recognisable colour contrast in the series, with its expressive symbolism of deep red touching dark grey, getting almost in the black, and the thick, sculpture-like texture.

Elżbieta Tęgowska graduated from the Painting Faculty at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. Her special graduation field was ceramics. She used to work as an art instructor trainer for the Youth Culture Centre in Gdańsk, where she was running programme in drawing and painting. The artist also ran the “Na Piętrze” Art Gallery, and there she organised over 40 exhibitions with works of young local artists and also worked as an art commentator for local magazines. She is an author and organiser of the “Sans Frontieres, Sans Limites” project under which many exhibitions in France were organised, showing works from ten artists from the Tri-City area. She was also a jury member for the Aye Aye International Film Festival in Nancy, France, where she also showed her exhibition. Elżbieta Tęgowska has taken part in numerous individual and collective exhibitions in Poland and abroad. Her works inspired by Conrad’s books have already been shown in the Polish Social and Culture Gallery in London during the annual Conrad Conference.


Follow Your Dream
21.10.2007 – 14.09.2008
Warehouse