WILANÓW EXHIBITION
The Polish School of Poster Art
2 November 1997

The works now on show at the Wilanów Poster Museum confirm that the great graphic art tradition is alive and kicking in Poland.

"The streets of Warsaw allow their poets unlimited liberties," Jan Lenica wrote of poster artist Henryk Tomaszewski after a 1986 scandal caused by a poster of Tomaszewski's that struck the communists as too frivolous. The poster, promoting a performance of Shakespeare's Richard II, featured a thumb in the shape of a penis. The exceptional prestige of Polish poster artists allowed them to hold up lightness, humor and the grotesque before the drab face of communism. Ironically, they also received state sponsorship.

Prof. Stanisław Wieczorek, graphic artist and dean of the graphics department of Warsaw's Academy of Fine Arts, discusses posters with the Voice's Zofia Jabłonowska.

Posters played an almost exclusively artistic role in communist Poland. There was little need to advertise cultural events, because most of them took place regularly and tickets for all the good films were sold out long in advance without promotion. Is it fair to say posters were the quintessence of Poland's graphic art?

At the time, posters were not just posters in the simple sense of the word. They did more than provide information about events and exhibitions. There was a lot more to it. And this is what people liked about them. Similar posters appeared in France and Germany. Such posters are still popular. I was recently in Essen at an exhibition of our department, and crowds of people came and asked about the posters. In Poland, such interest no longer exists.

In the past, other visual attractions were unavailable, and posters generated huge emotions. Tomaszewski, Stanny, Świerzy, Aleksiun, Lenica and Starowieyski worked out their own distinct styles and their work carried a great load of expression and individualism. But these were not posters in the classic sense of the word.

Are such posters still being created?

Naturally, posters are still being created, though they are less prominent. The genre has not collapsed, it has only been sidetracked. It is normal that graphic artists today are becoming involved in advertising. Its aesthetic qualities have easily entered our reality as a novelty. Advertisements are dynamic, and artists can test and develop their skills with them. But this does not have to mean that artistic posters are dying. It only means that poster art needs assistance, because I don't believe things happen by themselves, that talented people will just turn up in an attic somewhere. And this explains why we must protect important things such as artistic posters. This goal is furthered by events such as exhibitions at the Wilanów Poster Museum. We organize annual poster shows there every fall. This year's show attracted more than 800 works, 360 of which are on display until the end of December. Both renowned and younger artists are featured. This is still an attractive form of visual expression. It is enough to remember Toulouse-Lautrec's poster art, the postimpressionists and Art Nouveau. The Polish poster school joins these traditions.

What do you think of the link between poster art and ideology under communism?

Take a closer look at these posters. I believe they are not politically conditioned, even those posters created in the 1950s, including the anti-war posters by Trepkowski. Isn't this simply a general humanistic message? When we take out the slogans, the graphic signs will not suggest a link with ideology. A century from now no one will remember that, only the artistic values will remain, the dynamism inspiring other artistic disciplines. In the 1960s, there was such a place, the graphic arts publishing house on Smolna Street, where every Thursday commissions rated posters and selected them for printing. After that the editor-in-chief would carry those posters to the communist party's Central Committee for censorship and there the final decision was made. The decision did not differ much from the decision of the commission, because the authority of the artists making up the commission was considerable. I could see the mastery of Tomaszewski, Stanny and Świerzy at the time and I admired them. They still come here, teach others and help create the academy's openness and magnetism.

So the Polish school of poster art still exists?

It does. The Wilanów exhibition confirms that.

Reproduced with
permission from
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