Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery, a leading art museum in Ukraine, has over 60,000 artworks in its collection, including works of Polish, Italian, French, German, Dutch and Flemish, Spanish, Austrian and other European artists. The gallery is "successor" to a Polish institution, Lwowska Galeria Sztuki, founded in 1907 as the city's municipal museum. The Provenance of its current stock comes from a multiplicity of largely Polish sources, including the early purchase by the then city magistrature of the private collection of Jan Jakowicz. The collection was subsequently expanded through donations of parts of the Władysław Łoziński and Bolesław Orzechowicz collections. In 1940, after the city of Lviv/Lwów had been occupied by the Soviet Union, the Soviet government ordered the seizure of private property. As a result, works from the, integrated with the Ossolineum since 1823, the Borowski Library and several other private collections, are currently in the possession of the gallery. All these works were, until the 1939 Invasion of Poland and subsequent state appropriation, the property of the Polish state, private Polish collectors, and of the Polish Roman Catholic church and, arguably, remain such. In early 2005 the Lubomirski collection of 14th - 18th century European art was transferred to its new premises - the renovated Palace of Count Potocki, a former governor of Austrian Galicia. A masterpiece by the 17th-century French artist, Georges de La Tour, is on permanent display.
Timeline
1897 - the city magistrature decides to open an art gallery
On 14 February 1907 – the gallery opens. Its first curator is the Polish painter Marceli Harasimowicz, who served until 1931.
1914 – the gallery moves to a palace purchased from historian and writer Władysław Łoziński
1919 – Bolesław Orzechowicz donates his collection to the city. It includes paintings by Matejko, Juliusz Kossak, and Artur Grottger. At the time, the gallery is divided into three departments: Polish art, Western European art, and the Racławice Panorama
1938 – Leon Piniński and Konstanty Brunicki donate their collections to the gallery,
1939 - fearing the oncoming war, the local Polish aristocracy deposits their collections with the gallery,
1940 - Soviet occupying authorities seize the gallery. The Soviet authorities decide to close several other institutions, including the Ossolineum, Baworowski Library, the Historical Museum, the and private collections of the Dzieduszycki, Gołuchowski and Sapieha families. The gallery is placed under the administion of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts. Several Polish works are destroyed, the rest of the collections has not been restituted to Poland, and so remain in Lviv.
Divisions
Lozinski Palace, the main building, on 3 Stefanyka street