The Polish Ministry of Culture awarded the U.S. Embassy-sponsored Museum exhibition Frank Stella and Synagogues of Historic Poland the Sybilla award for “Exhibition of the Year 2016” during the Ministry’s 37th annual awards banquet honoring the achievements of Polish museums and public collections on May 16, 2017. The Sybilla awards are considered the equivalent of the Polish Oscars for museums and public collections throughout Poland, and the Frank Stella exhibit was selected from amongst more than 225 exhibitions in 2016.
The Sybilla awards are given to all types of museums in several categories including exhibition, education, conservation and preservation of cultural heritage, digitization and new technologies, research and publications.
The Frank Stella and Synagogues of Historic Poland exhibition was open to the public February 20 – June 20, 2016 and featured the extraordinary sculptural reliefs from Frank Stella’s Polish Villages series. These abstractionist works were displayed along with the pre -World War II photographs and measured drawings of the wooden synagogues by two Polish architects Kazimierz and Maria Piechotka which inspired Stella.
U.S. Ambassador to Poland Paul Jones joined Frank Stella and the director of Polin Muzuem Dariusz Stola at the grand opening on February 19, 2016. “The award is a great honor for such an amazing exhibit, which highlights the history and memory of Jewish culture in Poland. We are very pleased to have sponsored this exhibit and happy it received such a prestigious award,” stated Ambassador Jones.
The original news story can be found here.
