Date: 1987
Size: 27 x 39 inches
About the artist: Born in 1931, Waldemar Swierzy studied at the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts. Of him, Wikipedia claims him as "one of the Polish School of Posters' most prolific artists, having created over 2500 posters. He employed unusual concepts with a variety of techniques, frequently mirroring Polish social history from 1950s through 1980s, with a myriad of styles: folk art from the 50s, pop art from the 60s, portraits from the 70s, and TV images from the 80s. In addition, his Jazz Greats series of famous American jazz personalities became so well known that he reissued them in his later years as signed lithographs. The series includes: Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, jimi Hendrix, Charles Mingus, and Charlie Parker, among others."
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.
About Tadeusz Różewicz: (1921– 2014) was a Polish poet, playwright, writer and translator. Różewicz was in the first generation of Polish writers born after Poland regained its independence in 1918, During World War Two, he served in the Polish Underground Home Army . His elder brother, Janusz, also a poet, was executed by the Gestapo in 1944 for serving in the Polish resistance. His younger brother, Stanislaw, became a noted film director and screenwriter.