More on the Polish poster:
Art meets humor in eastern Europe

By David Chesanow | November 3, 2009 | Category: Art posters, Exclusive, Interview, Polish posters

(Part two of two)

Back in August, I wrote about an art form that truly excited me: the Polish poster. Why was I – and why do I continue to be – so enthusiastic about this means of expression?

For one thing, it’s great original graphic art, often with a wry political or social twist. For another, it’s an area of collecting that has not yet really been “discovered” by a lot of people – yet.

Therefore, it’s almost an open field for anyone who wants to buy one or many of these really great pieces of art. Some examples are already showing up in art auctions and pulling down pretty fair sums, but most are still very affordable (most are around 40 bucks or less).

The preeminent dealer in Polish poster art is Krzysztof Marcinkiewicz of PolishPoster.com (www.polishposter.com), based in Wroclaw, Poland. An accomplished photographer, Krzysztof is also something of a historian and social critic, which the following interview will show. As I indicated in my earlier story on Polish posters, I purchased two film posters – a beautiful limited edition poster for Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” printed in lush colors on heavy stock, and a moody image for Akira Kurosawa’s “The Seven Samurai” printed on cheaper stock, as that was how such ephemera was made in cash-strapped post-communist Poland. The posters shipped, well packed, in a tube and arrived swiftly. It was a very pleasant buying experience.

What follows are some questions I asked Krzysztof last year. Note that these are original posters, not reprints, and that he sells to U.S. galleries and dealers. My advice: Get ’em direct from the source while they’re still available.

AmeriCollector: Are you an artist yourself? How did you get interested in poster art?

Krzysztof Marcinkiewicz: Yes and no. I am photographer but not a poster artist. It is not related to posters in any way. You can see some (of my) photographs here: www.aristos.home. I grabbed my first poster from a local theater to hang it on my wall when I was in high school in 1980s and then was getting more and more. During my studies I started really collecting them and it also became my part-time business in early ’90s; I sold Polish posters for a few years in Berlin, then Paris and London.

AC: Do you know the artists personally? Do they do this work as full-time professionals, or are they struggling artists, like so many here in the U.S.? Are any of them famous in Poland?

Krzysztof: Yes, I know many of them, mostly young ones, but a few veterans of Polish posters too. I just talked yesterday with Andrzej Krajewski (www.polishposter.com/html/krajewski.html) about the possibility of making re-editions of some of his posters from the ’60s and ’70s He has lived in the U.S. since middle ’80s. Some of the artists commonly known in Poland are somehow “celebrities” (what an ugly word used to qualify some completely mindless creatures). An artist who is very well known in Poland is Franciszek Starowieyski and another one is Andrzej Pagowski.

AC: Is this kind of artwork popular in Poland? Does it appeal mostly to younger Poles? Is this an “underground” art form in Poland, and was it popular when Poland was still under communism?

Krzysztof: It’s strange: This kind of art, poster art, is not, in general, so much interesting for young people. Strange but true. It’s something that belongs to past times and is not very cool … or it is interesting for SOME people who don’t go with mainstream popular culture. During the communist times it was THE ONLY poster art existing here. “Polish School of Posters” is the name given to this fascinating phenomenon, which (evolved) from propaganda art (important during communist times, before any mass media, like TV, become popular; posters were a medium for information and propaganda) and a spirit of freedom and the Polish feeling of reality (extremely sarcastic sometimes). And it was effect of the work of great designers, teachers who were teaching students at art schools during 1950s.

This kind of art was much more popular during communist times than now. There were “Western-style” posters here during these times (but not) any official film distributors with their own material, so everything was done here. And because money was not a problem – there was no need to make ads for (purposes of) making bigger sales – film posters were more an artistic comment from the poster artist about the other work of art (i.e., the film).

There were also other types of posters, not just movie posters. Posters were designed for any event, like theater, exhibitions or simply anything.

After 1990 this kind of art became very limited. There are only some film posters in the Polish style done after 1990. Some theaters and opera houses still make them but no film distributors, as film producers make their own (ad) campaigns almost the same worldwide. Our dreams are planned and promoted by marketing departments now.

AC: There is a lot of subtle, dark humor in much of this work. Would you say this is part of the Polish spirit?

Krzysztof: Sure, it is. Some people say that this spirit is easy to make: You need to live between Russian and Germans for few hundreds years. You add diluted spirit (I mean a liquid thing) to make it 40-percent voltage. You drink the thing daily for some time and, sure, you can make Polish posters or at least make a humorous comment about it.

AC: Most of your posters are from the 1980s and later, I think. Was there less government control over artists from that time? Were more foreign films being shown in Poland from that time?

Krzysztof: I have posters from ’50s until today. There are more ’80s posters for sale on my site because there are more of them available, as they are newer. It was easier to collect them and get them in quantities. I have about 9,000 different posters in my collection, and you can see more ’80s than any others. The older ones are hard to get, and I usually have one or two copies of a title. They disappear from my site when they are sold.

AC: Which artists and which posters do you think are special?

Krzysztof: It’s too difficult a question, as it is subject of personal taste. The posters I like most are from the 1950s to 1968, and artists I like a lot are Starowieyski, Mlodozeniec, Krayewski and in fact many more.

AC: Where are most of your customers from? Do many Americans know about these posters?

Krzysztof: Still most of my customers are from the U.S. (Strange: I said “still.”) A few years ago about 80 percent of my customers were from America; right now it’s about 55 percent. The reason is that exchange rate changes over the last year forced some of my customers to spend more on gas than on something what they don’t really need. My prices become over 100 percent higher in the last four years for my American customers, only because the value of Polish currency is double its value four years ago, or the dollar value is half of what it was.

Polish posters are known in the States. There are many galleries that sell them, and most of the major poster dealers and auction houses carry them. I sell a lot of posters to dealers and galleries.

AC: Are these all original printings of these posters? How many were usually printed in an edition?

Krzysztof: Yes, these are originals. I always provide the printing date for each poster. If it says the year is 1989, that means it is printed in 1989. I don’t sell current reprints on my site, and in fact not many of these exist. My posters are originals. The film posters were printed for use in the theaters and on walls around the country and they have been printing them in the 4,000- to 10,000-copy range, depending on the title and time. But, assuming that in the middle 1980s there were 1,800 cinemas in Poland, you’re looking at very little material able to survive being mounted on walls, and most of them ended up in “paper heaven”: burned in the (furnaces) that were warming up the cinemas or simply ending up in trashcans.

There are much smaller print runs for theater or event posters: They didn’t need so many copies, as they were usually used in one city for an event. Today, the usual print run is low, up to 400 copies – like, for example, the “A Clockwork Orange” poster you bought: There were only 200 copies of these. The film was never shown in theaters in Poland, and this is the only Polish poster for the title, made as tribute to the film. There are no longer any more official posters like this in Poland, so some people who want the posters to continue to exist in the “Polish style” just make prints like this.