Date: 1971
Size: 23 x 33 inches
Artist: Otto Axer
About the Artist: Polish painter, set designer, educator. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, among others under Wojciech Weiss. After graduations he went on scholarship to Paris. When he came back he worked as a set designer in Warsaw, ?ód?, Cracow and Lviv. During the World War II he was taken to Warsaw ghetto but he managed to escape. He took part in the Warsaw Uprising. When the Uprising failed, he was sent to Stalag XI-A Altengrabow and stayed there until the end of the war. In 1949 he settled down in Warsaw where he worked for the Polish Theatre. In 1979 he was awarded with the title of Distinguished Member of the Association of Polish Artists. He practiced painting and graphic arts.
About the Poster: 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.
Polish posters have come to stand apart from the advertising design conventions fostered in Europe during the 20th century. It was during the communist regime, a time when culture was closely monitored by the state, that Polish artists found liberation in poster art. Ironically, this foremost public art form became ground for individual expression. During that period, the cultural institutions, of theatre and cinema especially, flourished as they were funded by government agencies. Artists freshly out of the fine arts academy flocked towards poster production as the demand for this art was rapidly growing. The result became some of the most unique and expressive posters the world has ever seen - and artworks in themselves.
About the play: Man of La Mancha is a 1965 musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh, and lyrics by Joe Darion. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes and his 17th-century novel Don Quixote. It tells the story of the "mad" knight Don Quixote as a play within a play, performed by Cervantes and his fellow prisoners as he awaits a hearing with the Spanish Inquisition. The work is not and does not pretend to be a faithful rendition of either Cervantes' life or Don Quixote. Wasserman complained repeatedly about people taking the work as a musical version of Don Quixote.
Ready to frame!