04/06/2020
Our featured exhibit celebrates Polish poster art.
Beginning in the 1950s and through the 1980s, the Polish School of Posters combined the aesthetics of painting with the succinctness and simple metaphor of the poster. It developed characteristics such as painterly gesture, linear quality, and vibrant colors, as well as a sense of individual personality, humor, and fantasy. It was in this way that the Polish poster was able to make the distinction between designer and artist less apparent.
Posters of the Polish Poster School significantly influenced the international development of graphic design in poster art. Their major contribution is in their use of the power of suggestion through clever allusions. Using strong and vivid colors from folk art, they combine printed slogans, often hand-lettered, with popular symbols, to create a concise inventive metaphor. As a hybrid of words and images, these posters created a certain aesthetic tension.
In addition to aesthetic aspects, these posters were able to reveal the artist's emotional involvement with the subject. They did not solely exist as an objective presentation, rather they were also the artist's interpretation and commentary on the subject and on society.
