Opening: July 29, 2021 Exhibition: 30 July — 3 October 2021 Curator: Bogusław Deptuła A fragment of one of the best collections of Polish art of the 20th and 21st century, from the collection of Werner Jerke, will be presented at the State Art Gallery in Sopot. Some of the works shown have a downright legendary character, they are known and reproduced, but hardly anyone realizes who owns them. Jerke collects with knowledge and a sense of the specificity of Polish art. He keeps his hand on her pulse and knows exactly where he beats. He chooses accurately and sensitively. By profession, Werner Jerke is a doctor-ophthalmologist, owner of an eye clinic and winemaker. However, he is best known as a collector of Polish art and creator of the first private museum of Polish art abroad. The museum is located in Germany's Recklinghausen (Ruhr Basin) in a building designed by a collector himself. Born in Gliwice to a German family, Jerke left Poland at the age of 23. He began by collecting the art of Young Poland and the École de Paris. Currently, his collection has several hundred items. It focuses on the Polish avant-garde of interwar and postwar modernity. The exhibition at the PGS in Sopot will present mainly paintings from the 80s and 90s of the 20th century. Works by members of the Warsaw Group — Ryszard Grzyb, Paweł Kowalewski, Jarosław Modzelewski, Włodzimierz Pawlak, Marek Sobczyk, Roman Woźniak; Wrocław Luxury, Ładnie Group, or classics such as Edward Dwurnik or Leon Tarasewicz and artists of the younger generation, such as Radek Szlaga. The presentation, numbering more than 60 objects, is a selection of works with a political or social commitment. It presents a slightly lesser-known side of Werner Jerke's collecting interests. The exhibition will also show one of the most famous paintings by Paweł Kowalewski — “I shot by the Indians”. The canvas was created in 1983 during the martial law and is an ironic self-portrait of the creator.