Jozef Chełmoński (1874-1914; his last name is pronounced Hew-mon-ski) is a painter whose position in Polish art history is the equivalent of Monet’s fame in France, that is, an artist whose works can be found on everything from merchandise to school textbooks and whose iconic canvases are likely to be familiar to most people. Chełmoński’s wistful image of storks departing a village for a winter trek south is as well known in Poland as van Gogh’s sunflowers are in the Netherlands. Three city branches of the Polish National Museum have pooled resources to mount a retrospective of Chełmoński’s work—the first in 40 years—assembling almost 120 canvases and dozens of drawings.

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