Tribute to Poland – Poster Design, 1916–1970.

Operacja Konieczna. 1956
by Roman Cieslewicz (French, born Poland. 1930-1996)

Sturm Über Asien, Pudowkins Meisterwerk, Neue Filmkunst, 1964
by Hans Hillmann (German, born Silesia (now Poland) 1925)

Ksiadz Marek (Friar Marek), 1963
by Roman Cieslewicz (French, born Poland. 1930-1996)

“It was my dream to make public pictures that could be seen by as many people as possible,” Cies´lewicz said. “Hence the top importance of the poster—the street picture.” At a time when the dictates of Socialist Realism conventionalized the human figure and required a relentlessly optimistic image of the future, posters for theater and film were able to adopt a more abstract and psychological approach.

Exodus, 1974
by Jan Sawka (Polish, born 1947)

Starting in the mid-1960s Wroclaw became a center for Poland’s theatrical and artistic avant-garde. Teatr STU was one of the most significant experimental theater groups in the country, and legendary figures Tadeusz Kantor and Andrzej Wajda honed their directing skills there. For STU’s production of Exodus, Sawka, a young art student, created this metaphorical image of an isolated figure as a burnt match. Several years later he moved to New York, where his practice developed to include set designs on budgets from one hundred to nearly four million dollars, for musicians such as the Grateful Dead and Steve Winwood.

Polske Surrealister (Polish Surrealists), 1970
by Jan Lenica (Polish, 1928-2001)

Although Lenica left Poland in 1963 to work in Paris and Berlin, he continued to accept commissions from the Polish state agencies. This poster advertising a German exhibition of Polish Surrealist art is indicative of Western European interest in the Polish art and design of the 1960s. Lenica’s motif of brains in a bowler hat is a witty adaptation of imagery by Belgian artist René Magritte. It indicates the pervasive Polish fascination with Surrealism as well as the characteristic Central European emphasis on the concealed interior life of the individual.

Cyrk Radziecki
by Roman Cieslewicz (French, born Poland. 1930-1996)

Crime et Châtiment, 1964

Seinodernichstein, 1964
Both works by Hans Hillmann (German, born Silesia (now Poland) 1925)

Plan 6 Letni, Wykuwamy Podstawy Socjalizmu, 1949
by Jerzy Srokowski (Polish, 1910-1971)

Poland was devastated during World War II and its infrastructure ruined. In the process of reconstruction, a new social and political order was to be forged through the centralized production of industry. The red-hot 6 in this poster proclaims the ideological superiority of the six-year plan designed to bring Poland’s agricultural economy into closer alignment with that of the USSR. The style and socialist content of political posters was more tightly regulated by state agencies than those for cultural events.

Nie! (No!), 1952
by Tadeusz Trepkowski (Polish, 1914-1954)

The succinct and dynamic composition of Trepkowski’s poster captured the memory of the devastation wrought in World War II—just one in four buildings remained standing in Warsaw. The threat of further international conflict generated much propaganda in the 1950s promoting the cause of peace. The Communist central state focused its attention on the rebuilding of the capital as a symbolic center of a new utopian order menaced by “capitalist aggression.” Trepkowski died at age forty, acknowledged as one of the most influential poster designers in Poland.

Warszawa, 1956
by Roman Cieslewicz (French, born Poland. 1930-1996)

Expressionisten Kunstausstelling Der Sturm, 1916
by Rudolph Bauer (American, born Poland. 1889-1954)
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In honor of the mighty contributions by Polish artists and designers of the former century. And with deepest condolences to our Polish friends of this century for their significant loss.
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All text and images courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
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