Masters of Metaphor: Poster Art from Poland

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Wiesław Wałkuski

poster design for the play “Caligula” by Albert Camus, n.d. The Dramatyczny Theatre, Koszalin; offset print. (poster image copyright by the artist)

The galleries will be open Sunday, September 18^th from 10 am to 5 pm for your viewing convenience!

Free admission.

Curated by Jacek Malec, Harcourt’s Executive Director, and presented as a key international exhibition during the 2022 Alberta Culture Days and the 2022 Design Week @ Harcourt House, this exhibition showcases a suite of 12 powerful poster designs by  internationally renowned contemporary poster designers from Poland who breached the boundaries of conventional poster design: Mieczyslaw Górowski (1941-2011), Jerzy Kolacz (1938-2009), Grzegorz Marszalek, Franciszek Starowieyski (1930-2009), Wieslaw Walkuski, and Leszek Wisniewski. The exhibition presents a selection of posters that typify the striking look and bold spirit of Polish poster design from 1970s to the late 1990s. The artists developed a sophisticated visual language characterized by surreal and expressionist tendencies, a bold use of colour, a visually rich language of metaphor, macabre, and often satirical humour.  The featured poster designers are key representatives of the “Polish School of Poster Art”. Many of them studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland under Henryk Tomaszewski (1914-2005) – an internationally renowned graphic and poster designer, and the founder of the “Polish School of Poster Art”. The “Polish School of Poster Art” is an international term coined to emphasize the world-wide fame and undeniable quality of Polish posters from the period of 1955-2005. Hundreds of them are masterpieces of art appreciated by international art critics, connoisseurs, private collectors, and public art institutions from all over the world.

Posters have been a dynamic element of the art world for almost 150 years. Poster art has been referred to as many things: art with a message, art of the metaphor, the art of the streets, and the art of the people. Through the interaction of words and images, posters announce events and provide information about a variety of subjects. Visual impact must be immediate and the message clear. Due to their utilitarian nature, posters are usually relegated to the graphic arts.

However, Polish posters of post-1945 era breach the boundaries of conventional poster design by undermining tradition and challenging their proclamatory purpose. Polish posters have inspired a new approach to the genre, which elevate poster design to an artform equal in importance to other forms of fine art. Hence, poster is regarded as one of the most important genres of artistic expression in the history of post-World War II Poland’s art. It is a form that is very strongly rooted in the real world and strongly focused on dialogue with the viewer.

In the Cold War era the vitality of the “Polish School of Poster Art” attracted international attention. Although state controlled, the posters – which are characterized by sophisticated imagery and surrealist tendencies – often carried powerful, oblique commentaries on the designers’ political surroundings.

Though, Henryk Tomaszewski – often called the “Father” of the Polish school of poster – denied the very existence of this movement, he still acknowledged that the major contribution of the Polish poster to the global graphic arts was its sense of “suggestion” to the viewer by means of a far-reaching conceptual abbreviation based on association or metaphors. Polish posters were not only the works of art, but also intellectual labyrinths and games of ‘hide-and-seek’, and referred not only to emotions, but to intellect as well.

It is ironic that a nation whose former Communist government (1944-1989) was under the thumb of ideology, and whose citizens were restricted by dictates and decrees, could produce a national graphic style of such high quality and integrity based on individuality. While both popular and commercial, Polish posters  of the post-1945 era passionately recognize and refer to the heritage of poster art and establish a vibrant continuity in the history of this art form.