Thursday, July 26, 2007

Plakaty! Plakaty! Plakaty!

http://www.polishposter.com/ is undoubtedly one of the best sites for Polish poster art online. Not only can one view extensive galleries of posters designed for the stage, cinema, and advertising, but micro-biographies for each artist are supplied as well. AND, to top it all off, they also have a large stock of original posters up for purchase.

The poster shown above is by Franciszek Starowieyski, an artist who turned his skills to poster design sometime in the 60s; his amazing work reaching up to the 90s. His incredibly powerful poster for Witkacy's Beyond Reality from 1981 is featured briefly in the opening sequence of the Brothers Quay's most well-known film, The Street of Crocodiles.
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There's always been so many things about poster design that have fascinated me. A poster artist once famously claimed, albeit rather biasedly, that posters are the most important art form, because of the mass’s constant exposure to them. I think there’s something true about this statement because, as can be seen at Polishposter.com, this stuff really is fine art, and it’s designed with a singular purpose. So much good art is never experienced, whereas posters have always been near the frontline, so to speak.

I have to knock a few things off my wall and make room for a new poster soon . . .

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