The Art of the Polish Poster

Wieslaw Walkuski

We may not have made it as far as an actual gallery on the Krakow trip, but there was a slight cultural diversion - a visit to the poster shop Galeria Plakatu. Previous to visiting, I was unaware of the wonderful world of Polish poster art, but thankfully that has now changed. They take their posters seriously in Poland - no dull, run of the mill film or theatre advertising will suffice when there are a group of highly talented, highly individualistic artists around to give a personal reflection and twist on the enterprise. And in keeping with Polish history of the past century, much of the art is somewhat unsettling - faces rip open to reveal a hidden identity within, objects and people morph and change, and things are never quite what they seem. And then there are the clowns. The creepy, freaky clowns (like there's any other type). Clowns which aren't happy to restrict themselves to circus posters, but sneak into other designs just to catch you out.

Andrzej Pagowski

Wiktor Sadowski

Jerzy Flisak

Stasys Eidrigevicius

Wiktor Gorka

This is just a representative sample of the talented bunch at work, for more examples, there are a range of online stores to investigate:
Polish Posters Shop
Polish-Poster.com
Polish Poster Gallery
The Art of Poster
Contemporary Posters