The Leon Wyczółkowski Regional Museum (Polish: Muzeum Okręgowe im. Leona Wyczółkowskiego w Bydgoszczy) is an ensemble of cultural institutions which have been first created in 1923 in the city of Bydgoszcz, Poland. Location The seat of the museum is located at 4, Gdańska Street, in downtown district. The historic building was originally part of the former monastery of the Poor Clares. The edifice has been used as a municipal hospital and has received an additional wing along Gdańska street in 1878, with Neo-Renaissance and Mannerism styles. History Prussian period The institution inherits the traditions of a Prussian association, Historical Society of the Noteć Region () which, from 1880 to 1902, was devoted to collecting historical collections and researching the history of the city of Bromberg and its region. From 1902 to 1945, the society operated as a historical branch of the German Society of Arts and Science in Bydgoszcz (). The collections were located in the former monastery of the Poor Clares' Church and were open to the public from 30 November 1890. The curator until 1920 was Konrad Kothe, a citizen of Bydgoszcz and a naturalist with some museum management practice. In May 1919, in the face of Bydgoszcz return to the reborn Polish state, part of the collection was moved to Berlin and deposited in the Museum für Völkerkunde. Interwar period Taking over the municipal council on 20 January 1920, Polish authorities strove to open a museum for the city. They identified as first location a tenement house on the western frontage of the Old Market Square, at No.2, abutting to the Church of St. Ignacy Loyola (razed in 1940), which used to house the Municipal Savings Bank. The museum opened on 5 August 1923, under the tenure of Bernard Śliwiński, city mayor and its first director was Father Jan Klein, a librarian, museologist and historian from Bydgoszcz. Initially, collections were not extensive, mainly in the field of: archeology, the richest section, with several thousand items; history, collecting relics from city craft guilds and militaria; numismatics; ethnography. Soon a department of Polish art dealing with painting, graphics and sculpture was created. The first two directors Father Jan Klein (1923-1925) and Tadeusz Dobrowolski (1925-1927) dedicated their energy to expand this section. Hence, they acquired works of Teodor Axentowicz, Julian Fałat, Józef Pankiewicz, Jacek Malczewski or Wojciech Weiss. A parallel collection was initiated, aiming at local artists, such as Maksymilian