Warsaw Voice - A Life on Walls

POSTER EXHIBITION
A Life on Walls
15 August 1999

To mark the 85th birthday of artist Henryk Tomaszewski, Wilanów Poster Museum has prepared his first wholly individual exhibition. The artist chose the works for display himself.

The 120 posters include four unfinished designs that show the artistic evolution of this co-founder of the so-called Polish School of Poster Art. One of the works is a 1948 poster advertising Orson Welles's film Citizen Kane. Another one-still unfinished-called Studencki cyrk Tralabomba (The Student Tralabomba Circus), is one of Tomaszewski's best known works. It shows a cat wearing a bowler hat against a green background. Tomaszewski's posters from the 1940s and '50s mark the peak years of the Polish School of Poster Art. Its style was characterized by the individuality of the artist, painterliness and extensive metaphors. Most of the posters were applied art and served the needs of film and theater.

A multi-talented artist, Tomaszewski mastered in many areas, such as drawing, graphics and set design. However, poster art was his true love. He established himself not only as one of the best poster makers, but he also created his own original school of poster making that goes far beyond the academic understanding of art. On opening night, the curator of the museum, Maria Krupnik, stressed the major influence Tomaszewski has had on Polish culture as a whole over the past 60 years.

Born in 1914 in Warsaw, Tomaszewski graduated from the local Fine Arts Academy in 1939. He worked as a teacher at the academy from 1952 to 1985. Tomaszewski won several awards, including five gold medals at the International Poster Exhibition in Vienna in 1948, and first prize at the International Art Biannual in Sao Paolo in 1963. He has showed his work at many exhibitions in Poland and abroad. In 1976, he was awarded the title of Royal Designer by London's Royal Society of Arts. Tomaszewski has trained many popular artists, including Wiesław Rosocha, who prepared the layout for the Wilanów exhibition.

Many of Tomaszewski's works have entered the canon of poster art. Wilanów museum displays his great film posters, such as the 1947 Symfonia Pastoralna (Pastoral Symphony), theater posters for Rewizor (Inspector) from 1953, Hamlet from 1962, Kordian from 1980 and Edward II from 1986. Gitanes from 1991 represents an advertising poster. However, the Henry Moore poster remains Tomaszewski's greatest artistic achievement. Designed to promote an exhibition by this great British sculptor, it incisively interprets the theme of Moore's work in the form of an ideogram. Other important works include the 1993 poster to the Ars Erotica exhibition and one called Moja droga twórcza (My Artistic Way) from 1996.

In his art, Tomaszewski uses a variety of techniques, such as collage. He also creates both figurative and abstract art. Tomaszewski's works are an evidence of the political, social and cultural changes that have taken place in Poland since World War II. The exhibition opens with the artist's early works, including a poster from 1945, prepared to mark the celebrations of May Day. In 1956, at the time of political liberalization following the death of Stalin, Tomaszewski made a poster for George Gershwin's musical Porgy and Bess. Before the parliamentary elections in 1989, he designed a poster for the Solidarity movement.

The museum sells postcards reproducing some of the artist's posters, and Tomaszewski is also the author of the poster promoting the exhibition.

Wilanów Poster Museum, 10/16 St. Kostki Potockiego St., through Aug. 31.

Anna Kosowska-Czubaj