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An independent guide to Poland.

Museum in Łódź

Muzeum Sztuki (ms²)

One of the world's earliest modern-art museums, whose ms² branch shows its avant-garde collection inside a converted Manufaktura mill.

Reviewed and updated July 2026

Muzeum Sztuki (ms2)
Photo: Pelikan13 / CC BY-SA 3.0 pl, via Wikimedia Commons

The avant-garde collection at ms²

Muzeum Sztuki grew from an International Collection of Modern Art assembled by the a.r. group of Polish avant-garde artists and shown from 1931. The holdings span Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism and the home-grown Unism of Strzemiński and Kobro, with the ms² branch used to display 20th and 21st-century work.

A pioneering modern-art museum

The institution is often cited as the first modern-art museum in Europe and the second in the world after MoMA in New York, which gives its collection unusual historical weight for a regional city. It now runs across several sites, including ms², ms1 and the Herbst Palace.

Where ms² is in Łódź

ms² occupies a former weaving plant at Ogrodowa 19, inside the Manufaktura complex, and opened there in 2008. That puts it within a short walk of the Poznański Palace and Manufaktura's shops and squares.

Frequently asked questions

It displays Muzeum Sztuki's modern and contemporary collection, rooted in early 20th-century avant-garde movements and extending to recent art.
Its collection, first shown in 1931, is regarded as one of the earliest public collections of modern art anywhere, predating most comparable institutions in Europe.
ms² is at Ogrodowa 19 within the Manufaktura complex, near the Poznański Palace.

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