UNAM
Revista Digital Universitaria
Revista Digital Universitaria ISSN: 1607 - 6079 | Publicación mensual | 1 de agosto de 2013 vol.14, No.8

ABSTRACT

The Polish Expositive Poster, 1918–1939

Alicia Senón–Llopis Golec



I will look at a topic that is quite unfamiliar in Poland as well as in other countries. In spite of the fact that Polish posters enjoy prestige on a worldwide level for their high artistic value, the posters from this country that belong to the interwar period of 1918–1939 are almost unknown of. Due to this fact, it was necessary to find information and analyze facts on this topic, which turned out to be of great concern.

Posters belonging to the funds of the following collections were studied: The Poster Museum at Wilanow (a subsidiary of the National Museum of Warsaw), The Museum of Ethnography, Arts and Crafts of Lviv, Ukraine, The General Library of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Krakow, The National Museum of Poznan, The General Library of the University of Marie Sklodowska-Curie and The National Museum of Krakow.

The analysis of the promoted expositions of the Polish posters of the middle war period of 1918–1939 shows us an interesting panorama regarding the theme of the economic and cultural life of Poland that did not get left behind in Europe, despite enormous difficulties. Rather, it progressed by developing industry, economy and education and by enriching its culture and developing technology.

All the gathered facts in the study of the collection of posters give us a partial analysis of the panorama of poster making and poster exhibitions through the years 1918–1939 in Poland. Although the collection from this time period is currently closed off and available for study, unfortunately only one part of the work that was not destroyed in the Second World War is available (and only the most interesting posters were kept by collectors or institutions of the era), because of this the information is incomplete. We do not know with certainty the quantity of posters that were created for all of the celebrated exhibitions.

Keywords: Poster; exhibition; Poland; graphic design; visual communication.