Exhibition

The Polish School of Poster Art

10 Jan 2011 – 28 Jan 2011

Event times

Mon-Fri 10am-4pm

Cost of entry

Free

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Avenue Gallery

Northampton, United Kingdom

Event map

About

An exhibition of Polish posters dating from the 1950s-60s opens at The University of Northampton's Avenue Gallery on 10 January.

The Polish School of Posters which flourished in the cold war era has been internationally influential in the field of graphic design. Artists such as Roman Cieślewicz, Wiktor Gorka, Eryk Lipiński and Waldemar Świerzy, whose work would originally have been displayed to public acclaim on the streets of Warsaw and other major cities, are now recognised in major collections and specialist museums across the world.

The posters in this exhibition have been selected from The University's Osborne Robinson Poster Collection, which was donated to the School of The Arts by Thomas Osborne Robinson OBE (1904-1976) with the aim of providing Northampton's students with first-hand access to work by some of the great names of poster design.

Amongst the many highlights of the Collection the Polish posters stand out for their painterly use of vibrant colour and strong graphic qualities, together with their enigmatic and intriguing subject matter. The majority of them were commissioned to publicise film and theatre productions which the artists were encouraged to interpret in a metaphorical or symbolic way, and the resulting images are often surreal and rich in double meanings.

As well as the film and theatre posters the exhibition includes others designed to encourage foreign tourists to visit Poland and its attractions such as zoos and circuses, as well as a small number of rare Health and Safety posters.

It is planned that the exhibition will tour the UK and abroad as part of an ongoing research project at the University, ' A Thousand Words', which investigates how illustration crosses cultural and language divides.

'The Polish School of Poster Art' will run from 10-28 January and is open to the public Mondays-Fridays 10am-4pm, plus Tuesday 11 January from 5-8pm. Admission is free. Avenue Gallery is located in The University of Northampton's Avenue Campus on St. George's Avenue, Northampton NN2 6JD. For more information about the exhibition please contact the Gallery on 01604 893046 or email gallery@northampton.ac.uk.

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