Artists in Profile: Polish Poster Art

July 19, 2020

Artists in Profile: Polish Poster Art

In my final essay on artworks in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection made for a popular audience, we travel to Poland to look at the country's world-renowned school of contemporary poster art. The product of a mutually-beneficial arrangement between artists and state cultural agencies in the early years of the Communist regime in Post-World War II Poland, this innovative genre of street art managed to flourish under official censorship by means of the art of ironic indirection, where poster designers used subversive signs and symbols to convey hidden messages to more knowing viewers. This strategy once born of political necessity remains a defining characteristic of Polish poster art in the Post-Communist era. Religious motifs in theme and variations like the Crown of Thorns, the Wounds of Christ, the Star of David, and the All-Seeing Eye of God have enriched the language of visual metaphor in Polish posters in intriguing ways. Favorite native son, the sainted Pope John Paul II, is depicted in three decidedly different portraits. An eclectic assortment of these massed produced art pieces can be found on the new Polish Poster Art page in the Schools of Sacred Art section. (John Kohan)