THE TIES that bind a family can find themselves tested by distance and history.

For the Maciag family those ties stretch across “old Europe” starting in the long vanished Austro-Hungarian Empire and leading all the way into the 21st century and a special display at Hereford’s Museum and Art Gallery.

Two generations of artwork tell a single story of a single family spanning borders and boundaries at the whim of history.

The Maciag name – through Otto Maciag and his daughter Anna – has been a fixture on the county’s arts scene for many years. Otto’s brother Ludwik was also an accomplished artist in Poland.

The museum’s marking of Polish Independence Day tomorrow (Friday) is what brings them together again.

After 123 years of effective occupation, the Polish state regained its independence in 1918. After the Second World War, the Soviet communist regime removed Polish Indepen-dence Day from the calendar. The official holiday was eventually restored after the Velvet Revolution.

Polish independence brought the Maciag family back home.

Otto and Ludwik’s father served with the Austro-Hungarian army – the southern part of Poland he was born into then being subsumed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire – and fought in the First World War in the Balkans.

The Second World War tore the family apart again.

Otto found himself in the UK where he become one of the first, if not the first, exiles to be appointed as a teacher here.

Ludwik stayed on in Poland, narrowly escaped deportation by the Communists to Siberia for being in the Polish underground army and eventually became dean of the Warsaw Academy of Art.

Otto’s daughter, Anna, was responsible for various Chopin bicentenary concerts in Bristol and Hereford.

Ceramics and paintings from all three feature – along with the family’s story – in the exhibition that runs until January 7.