Henryk Świątkowski (1909-1999) was a well-known teacher, museologist and ethnographer. It was his son – Tomasz (film director)– who has brought his father’s 12 cassetes with recordings from Łowicz to our attention. Recordings were a valuable addition to many phonogram recordings from this Mazovia subregion, gathered i.e. in the Institute of Art’ Phonogramm Collection. Świątkowski’s recordings were made in the 70s, when he was a head of Łowicz Museum. The repertoire, performed by traditional singers and instrumentalists – comes from famous Łowicz ethnographic region ( i.a. from Skaratki, Maurzyce, Łowicz).

Among the performers we found many people, who were also informants during numerous field works in Łowickie district, conducted by Henryk Świątkowski and his wife Anna. Those people were folk artists – versatile, often not only singers and musicians, but also paper-cutters, embroiderers, sculptors. Sadly, it’s impossible to make a profound and detailed description of the collection, due to lack of the detailed documentation, though the work is still in progress. The collection also includes recordings from the 70s during Young Artists’ International Week in Łowicz as well as copies of radio broadcast featuring Henryk Świątkowski.

The archival collection has been digitalized by Maria-Szymańska-Ilnata within the Polish folk music – phonographic heritage project, and is still being explored, identified and descripted.