A contemporary art gallery in Bielsko-Biała, with a building from 1960 on ul. 3 Maja, the Sixt villa with a garden, and a club café.
The Bielska BWA Gallery is a contemporary art gallery run by the city of Bielsko-Biała. Its main seat is at ul. 3 Maja 11, and since 2020 the gallery has also used the historic Sixt villa at ul. Mickiewicza 24 and its garden.
The seat was erected in 1960 as the single-storey Artists' Pavilion, on the site of the destroyed Bielsko synagogue, to a design by Mieczysław Szymuś. Władysław Szostak created the artistic design of, among other things, the sgraffiti on the adjoining wall of the Banialuka Puppet Theatre. In 1970-1975 it housed a branch of the Katowice Bureau of Art Exhibitions, which became an independent institution after the Bielsko Voivodeship was created.
In 1989 the building was extended to its present form. A second floor with a new exhibition hall, a café with a glazed corner façade, and new offices and storerooms were added to a design by Tadeusz Wąsik. The gallery has two halls with a total area of 400 m². In 1994 the institution was taken over by the local authority, which gave it its present name.
The gallery carries out exhibition, publishing, documentation and educational activities. It organises the Bielska Jesień Painting Biennale and the Bielsko Visual Arts Festival. In the Sixt villa, selected works from the permanent collection are shown, which in January 2022 numbered 1,073 works. The gallery's website also announces installations in the villa's garden and meetings with artists, and the main building has the Aquarium club café.
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