About Polish Poster Art
A good deal of thought has been given to the Polish Poster School's phenomenon.
It seems that its success can be attributed to social, as well as artistic,
conditions. The genial political climate in the country at the time was
an important factor. Moreover, every possible organisation, especially those
in the cultural arena, were vying for posters painted by one of the famous
artists. For many years there was no film, opera or theatre premiere, concert,
festival or other public event without a poster.
The poster soon became an element of mass culture and poster biennials in
Warsaw attracted huge crowds. The collectors' movement spread widely. It
is no surprise that the socialist authorities used posters as a means of
propaganda, commissioning artists to celebrate such occasions as Labour
Day, party congresses, anniversaries and ceremonies. Many leading Polish
poster designers resisted temptation, but others succumbed and from time
to time produced very memorable pieces of art.
The success of Polish poster art had strong artistic foundations and was
not only due to the advantageous social conditions. The graphic artists
who established the Polish poster school were first and foremost excellent
artists. It was certainly not a standardised school, its most outstanding
representatives adopting different forms of expression: Henryk
Tomaszewski was conspicuous by a very discerning use of the mediums
of expression, by intellectual abstracts and by refined symbols. The erudite
Franciszek Starowieyski
liked to shock the spectator.He did not avoid surrealistic motives, willingly
referring to the idioms of the painting of days gone by. Waldemar
Swierzy, the master of the spot of colour and bold colour schemes, was
close to the Pop Art poetics. Jan
Mlodozeniec consciously adhered to Primitivism, efficiently using simple,
almost childish lines and spots.
In the early 1980s subsequent young artists began achieving success. The
one to gain the greatest popularity was Wiktor
Sadowski. His very pictorial posters resembling blurred watercolours
were filled with nostalgia and mystery. Stasys
Eidrigevicius was the other young man with a great talent for poster
art. He introduced his own unique world, bringing dreams and fairy-tales
into poster art.
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