In view of the fragmentary information available about Nikifor’s early years, archival photographs form the basis of the documentary part of the exhibition. Nikifor the man was noticed only when his paintings came to the attention of the public, that is, in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The earliest photographs of him come from around that time. The photos were taken by street photographers who earned money by taking pictures of visitors, and their names are not known. In the old pre-war pictures, Nikifor always poses for the photographs. We can see the painter as a man of about thirty, dressed elegantly: in a white shirt with a ruff, in a jacket or in a black cape artists liked to wear at the beginning of the 20th century. He is photographed with his painting workshop, which he always carries with him. The oldest dated picture of Nikifor is the photograph of the young artist with ‘Soborczyk’, known from many publications. It was taken in Krynica in the summer of 1932 by Roman Turyn. It shows the young Nikifor at work, painting on a simple wooden table in a park, most likely the Zdrojowy Park. In the lower part, one can see a fragment of one of Nikifor’s most famous paintings, called ‘Soborczyk’ in the literature, depicting a convention of painters modelled on that of Orthodox clergymen. This famous painting was most likely done in the 1920s and was considered lost in Poland after World War II. Fortunately, however, it survived in the collection of Roman Turin in Lviv. This picture was hand-framed by Nikifor in a double orange and blue frame. The artist kept it for several decades, until the end of his life. Judging by the pin, it must have hung in his flat. On the reverse side, Nikifor placed characteristic inscriptions. The photograph displayed below, depicting a petite, modestly dressed country woman, is the only known likeness of Nikifor’s mother. This room also presents pictures of Nikifor with several people who played an important role in promoting his work and helped him in life, such as Ella and Andrzej Banach, Aleksander Jackowski, and the Lemko ethnographer Paweł Stefanowski. You can also see sketches for Nikifor’s portrait (reproductions) by Roman Turin, the Ukrainian painter who was the first to start collecting Nikifor’s paintings back in the 1930s. Elements of Nikifor’s artistic workshop are collected in a display case. It consists of boxes of school watercolours and crayons, some pencils and brushes, several paint cases, and unused pieces of paper. For many years Nikifor could not afford to buy real painting materials, so he painted on random pieces of paper he managed to get for free, such as wrapping paper, old posters, sheets of paper from school notebooks, court prints, cardboard, cigarette boxes, notebooks for paper cutting, photographic paper, tracing paper, etc. A certain ‘stock’ of paper made by Nikifor remained among the painter’s memorabilia. The stamps must also be considered an important part of his workshop. The artist had more than a dozen of them. Finished paintings stamped with them became, in Nikifor’s mind, a kind of official document. A board at the exhibition shows the prints of the stamps. In this room, visitors can also watch the 1956 documentary film ‘Master Nikifor’ by Jan Łomnicki.