On the occasion of Matołek the Billy-Goat (Polish: Koziołek Matołek) 90th birthday, the Museum of Caricature in Warsaw organises the first ever exhibition for children entitled “Jump with Matołek the Billy-Goat”. You can view the exhibition until March 19, 2023.
Matołek the Billy-Goat is a fictional character in one of the first and most famous Polish comics back in 1933. It became a cult classic, popular since its creation till today, and becoming an important part of the canon of Polish children’s literature.
The stories center around the quest that Matołek the Billy-Goat undertakes: to find Pacanów, a town where it is rumoured they make shoes for goats.
Its adventures are amusing and sometimes even surreal. Matołek is nice, naive, clumsy, laughable and not very bright. The goat resembles the famous children’s story character, Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne in many regards.
Pacanów, the setting of the comic, is a real town in Poland. Once when Makuszyński and Walentynowicz were sitting in a coffee house in Kraków, they spotted a sad looking man sipping a drink at a nearby table. They asked him why he looked so gloomy, and he told them that he came from the small town of Pacanów and was wondering how to help the town prosper. Makuszyński and Walentynowicz decided then to help him by popularizing the small town in their books.
Matołek the Billy-Goat celebrates his 90th birthday. The first volume of his adventures was published on December 14, 1932. On the occasion of the jubilee, the Museum of Caricature in Warsaw invites all children aged 4 to 10 to the first exhibition for children in its history.
The museum will turn into a world of adventures of Matołek the Billy-Goat. The exhibition will take the form of a road to Pacanów, and visitors will be given tasks to complete. They will have to squeeze, jump, slide, crawl, pull, attach and climb. Everything on the occasion of Matołek the Billy-Goat’s 90th birthday.