The art of the Polish poster

by Dorota Folga-Januszewska

The book presents the history of Polish graphic tradition leading to the phenomenon called Polish poster art, a history that begins with the first printing centers in Krakow in the 16th century, the birth of artistic graphics in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Through the workshop experiments of the 19th century, modernist transformations, the internationally renowned phenomenon of Polish graphic art of the interwar period and the birth of the Polish school of graphic design in the 1930s, to the Polish school of poster art in the second half of that century, the Solidarity-era affiche brut of the next generation, and finally the flourishing of young, poetic, and anarchistic poster art at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries and the beginning of the 21st century. Through 1,724 reproductions of works by several hundred artists gathered in over a dozen collections in Poland and around the world, the reader has the opportunity to wander through and observe the transformations of this Polish specialty.

The Polish poster – one of the most recognizable concepts of 20th-century art, a phenomenon of effectively combining opposites: ambiguity and clarity, metaphor and simplicity, artistic path and effective advertising. The result of centuries of changes in visual communication, changes that say a lot about the specificity of Polish culture, the essence of which was and is to reconcile contradictions.

Concept, text, selection and layout of illustrations: Dorota Folga-Januszewska
Artistic concept and graphic design: Lech Majewski
Number of pages: 600
Number of illustrations: 1724
Binding: hardcover
Language: English