The Wiktor Ambroziewicz Museum of Chełm Land in Chełm comprises four buildings located in the center of the city: at 55 Lubelska Street, 57 Lubelska Street, 56a Lubelska Street and 4 Św. Mikołaja Street.
The museum offers a journey through the history of the Chelm region, from prehistoric flora and fauna, through traditional culture to modern art. Permanent exhibitions and numerous temporary exhibitions await visitors.
The tour should start with the collections in the History Department, from level – 1, where the permanent exhibition, telling the history of Chelm, begins. The first display cases show archaeological finds, even before the city was founded. They gradually give way to artifacts from the period of the Halicko-Vlodzimierski Principality. Noteworthy are later testimonies of the city’s multiculturalism, where followers of three religions marked their identity, but also coexisted and cooperated. On the first floor you can continue your further walk through history, starting from the 19th century. On the first floor, a completely different nature exposition awaits. There are exhibits on geology, paleontology, botany and zoology. Large glass cases show habitat-related, life-size species, often very rare. Particularly noteworthy is the “Fossil World” exhibit, which shows imprints of prehistoric plants, including horsetails and forbs. There are also Cretaceous specimens: snails, sea urchins, belemnites or corals.
The museum’s collections are divided into substantive departments, which are made available in four buildings. Extremely interesting is the collection of numismatic artifacts as well as Polish portrait painting. In the Department of Old Art of Chelm Land one can see Polish paintings and graphics of the 19th and first half of the 20th century, as well as portraits of people connected with Chelm Land, including the Poletyls, Zajdlers, Cieszkowskis, Waclaw Rzewuski, Scholastyka Swirska, Wojciech Weglinski. Also present is a collection of works by artists associated with Chelm: Zenon Waśniewski, Uklea, Jerzy Grosman, Julian Bajkiewicz.
An important and popular section is the Department of Ethnography, presenting, among other things, handicraft products of artists of the Chelm region, such as lamps, clocks, furniture and silverware.
The museum’s collection also includes numerous exhibits of ethnographic and archaeological heritage (56a Lubelska St.) and, making up a moving testimony, an exhibition in the basement of the former District Public Security Office (27 Reformacka St.) – Permanent Exhibition: Chelm Security and its Victims. To be viewed by appointment. The exhibition features documents showing the beginnings of the emerging people’s power, the first orders of the communist authorities, and photographs of persecuted people, murdered during interrogations and actions of the Security Service.
Wiktor Ambroziewicz Museum of Chełm Land in Chełm
building at 55 Lubelska Street
tel. (+48) 82 565-26-93
contemporary art exhibition and temporary exhibitions.
Departments of History and Nature
building at 57 Lubelska Street
tel. (+48) 82 564-05-70
permanent exhibitions: historical, nature.
Chelm Art Department
St. Nicholas Chapel 4 St. Nicholas Street
(former Uniate Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas)
tel. (+48) 82 564-02-12
exhibitions of ancient art of the region
temporary exhibitions: ancient art, concert hall
Departments of Archaeology and Ethnography
building at 56a Lubelska Street
tel. (+48) 82 564-01-01
permanent exhibition: Return to the past. The history of traditional culture of the Chelm region.
temporary exhibitions: archaeological and ethnographic.
Gallery 72 – Department of Contemporary Art
a building in the former Piarist monastery complex at the Church of the Sending of the Holy Apostles,
55 Lubelska St.
tel. (+48) 82 565 26 93
contemporary art exhibitions and temporary exhibitions
