Polish Poster Art

Aleksandra Ziętak

Polish poster art became an organized movement between 1890 and 1905, principally in Cracow and Lvov , then under Austro-Hungarian rule. The economic and cultural communities expressed interest in posters to promote their activities.  In Poland posters originated in the studios of well-known late-nineteenth century artists, such as Stanislaw Wyspianski, Wojciech Kossak, Jozef Mehoffer, Teodor Axentowicz and Wojciech Weiss. The Society of Polish Applied Art, founded in 1902, opposed foreign influences and composed posters with traditional historic forms. These earliest posters revealed Polish folk art, and were characterized by decorative color patterns and a rhythmic flow of line. From the outset critics in Paris , Vienna , and Munich recognized their distinctiveness. Their approach to design – lightness in conveying the subject, the free manner of associating theme and image – is shared by their successors a half-century later.

Between 1919 and 1939, Polish posters were enriched by a steady stream of progressive European art movements – Cubism, Constructivism, Futurism, and Surrealism. The artists included not only applied graphic designers, but also printmakers, painters, architects, sculptors, and cinematographers. Warsaw became the noted center of poster art in Poland . The greatest master of this time was Tadeusz Gronowski, who brought the ideas of modern design and art deco from Paris to Poland . Characteristic of Gronowski and other graduates of the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw Technical University was design discipline, clear compositional structure, and expressive graphic symbols. A factor favorable to the growth of applied graphic art was the period of economic crisis in the years 1929-1933. Business firms advertised themselves through posters among other media.

After World War II Polish society gradually began to regard poster design as an art form equal in importance to painting. On the one hand there were political propaganda posters drawn from the Soviet influence, and on the other were posters on cultural topics, particularly films as people flocked to the movies. Movie posters that evolved were unlike most in that a scene was rarely shown. Instead the artists tried to capture the essence of the film or use a visual metaphor to sum up the impression of it. This trend caught on and spread to other fields.  Posters became an outlet for individual artistic expression

Henryk Tomaszewski defined what later became known as the Polish School of Poster Art by basing his work on artistic statement and on graphic interpretation of the film. Jan Lenica and Wojciech Fangor were among the first to introduce painters’ tools to poster design through use of texture and strong color masses and freedom with which they shaped their images. The posters of these years, the height of the Polish school of poster art, were full of life and deeply humane content.  So distinctive was Polish poster art that it became recognized worldwide. Tadeusz Trepkowski is known as the father of the postwar political poster. His 1952 anti-war poster of a bombed out building inside the silhouette of a descending bomb and the single word Nie! (No!) is a classic. In the sixties the art form favored simplicity, being purely graphic, cool, and devoid of emotion. Critics regard the mid-fifties through the early seventies as the golden age of Polish posters

In the seventies, film posters began to lose their importance and theater posters led Polish poster art. Waldemar Swierzy’s poster for Andrzej Wajda”s Promised Land won the Hollywood Reporter award in 1975 for the best foreign film poster. In the early 1980’s, after the birth of the trade union Solidarity, posters burst to life carrying political messages aimed at the government. As the Cold War ebbed there was an influx of such Western trends as Surrealism, neo-Art Nouveau, and Pop art. Artists began experimenting with photographic techniques, collage, and knowledge gained from studies in optics. Political and social transformation after 1989 introduced changes in the production and function of posters.

Since 1966 the International Poster Biennale is held every two years at the Zacheta, Warsaw ’s largest art gallery. It is undoubtedly the most important international poster competition with designers from over 50 countries submitting works. In 1968 a poster museum, a branch of the National Museum in Warsaw , was founded outside Warsaw in the rebuilt horse stables of the former royal summer residence in Wilanow. The Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibition sponsored a two-year American tour of Polish posters beginning in 1978. Galleries hang posters alongside watercolors, oils, and more traditional graphics. Posters in Poland are personal statements on cultural topics. Polish posters are as fiercely individualistic as the personalities involved. Among the winners of major national and international awards, and considered masters of modern Polish poster art, are Jerzy Czerniawski, Grzegorz Marszalek, Jan Mlodozeniec, Wiktor Sadowski, Franciszek Starowiejski, Waldemar Swierzy, and Wieslaw Walkuski.

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