Both Podkarpackie and Upper Silesia provinces were beneficiaries of Herbert Clark Hoover's extraordinary humanitarian actions after World War I when millions of Polish people and especially Polish children were saved from disease and starvation. He was also a mining expert and helped Polish post-war economic reconstruction by establishing a mining commission, facilitating transportation and advising on financial matters. Hoover was also very active in the post World War II humanitarian effort organizing the United Nation Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA)transports for the tormented Polish nation. He became a true symbol of Polish -American friendship and owning to decisions of the local government and school authorities Hoover will become the patron of the Zespół Szkół Ogólnokształcących and Ponadgimnazjalnych in Ruda Śląska, the first Polish school to be named in his honor.

Adam Grochowski was born in 1924 in Warsaw and died in Toledo, Ohio in 1992. His youth which befell at the time of World War II, mirrored the tragic fate of his generation. Prisoner of two infamous German Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Mauthausen, he witnessed and experienced the terror and suffering which man inflicted upon another man. Art helped him survive the times of oppression and it developed into his profession for the rest of his life.

The exhibition, which features portrait painting from the late 18th to mid 20th century, includes the first presentation of early American painting in Poland. Portraits of women, statesmen, children together with self-portraits of artists offer a unique opportunity to examine the evolution of American portrait painting and its role in creating national identity. Canvases of William Meritt Chase, Frederick Frieseke, Richard Emil Miller, Frederick MacMonnies, Mary Cassatt and James Abbott McNeill Whistler are featured.