-
Nie! (No!), 1952
The first poster artist to emerge in Poland after World War I was Tadeusz Trepkowski. His famous 1952 antiwar poster demonstrates his technique of distilling content to the simplest statement. A few simple shapes symbolize a devastated city, which is superimposed on a silhouette of a falling bomb. The word nie! (no!) expresses the tragedy of war. -
Henryk Tomaszewski
Henryk Tomaszewski, a professor at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, became the spiritual head of Polish graphic design. His posters, such as the football poster for the Olympic Games in 1948, were composed of bits of torn and cut paper, then printed by the silkscreen process. He led the trend toward developing an
aesthetically pleasing approach, escaping from the somber world of tragedy and remembrance into a bright, decorative world of color and shape. -
The Conceptual Image
During the decades after World War II, the conceptual image emerged. It dealt with the design of the entire space, including the integration of word and image, and conveyed not merely narrative information but ideas and concepts. The creation of conceptual images became a significant design approach in Poland, the United States, Germany, and Cuba. -
Polish Posters
The poster was an important form of communication in Poland and a source of national pride that received international attention during the 1950s. -
"La Cantatrice Chauve"
Robert Massin's designs for Eugène Ionesco’s plays combine the pictorial conventions of the comic book with the sequencing and visual flow of the cinema. The drama of "La Cantatrice Chauve" (The Bald Soprano) is enacted through Henry Cohen’s high-contrast photographs. Each character is assigned a typeface for his or her speaking voice. -
Push Pin Almanack
The more conceptual approach to illustration began with a
group of young New York graphic artists: Seymour Chwast, Milton Glaser, Reynolds Ruffins, and Edward Sorel banded together and shared a loft studio. Freelance assignments were solicited through a joint publication called the Push Pin Almanack. -
the German magazine "Twen"
Launched in Munich in 1959, the German periodical "Twen" derived its name by chopping the last two letters from the English word that signified the age group of sophisticated young adults to whom the magazine was addressed. The magazine featured excellent photography used in dynamic layouts by its art director, Willy Fleckhouse. -
Psychedelic Posters.
The graphics movement that expressed this cultural climate drew from a number of resources: the flowing, sinuous curves of art nouveau, intense optical color vibration associated with
the brief op-art movement popularized by a MoMA exhibition; and the recycling of images from popular culture or by manipulation that was prevalent in pop art (such as reducing continuous-tone images to high-contrast black-and-white). -
"A Grateful Dead" poster
"A Grateful Dead" poster designed by Robert Wesley Wilson contains swirling lines and letterforms, which are variants of Alfred Roller’s art nouveau. Wilson was the innovator of the psychedelic poster style and created many of its stronger images. -
The Association concert poster
Designed by Wes Wilson. Lettering becomes an image, signifying a cultural and generational shift in values in this 1966 concert poster for The Association. -
“Alabama Blues” poster
Designed by Gunther Kieser. Combines two photographs, of a dove and a civil-rights demonstration, with typography inspired by nineteenth-century wood type. His poetic visual statements always have a rational basis that links expressive forms to communicative content. It is this ability that separates him from design practitioners who use fantasy or surrealism as ends rather than means. -
Milton Glaser’s Bob Dylan Poster
Milton Glaser’s 1967 image of the popular folk-rock singer Bob Dylan is presented as a black silhouette with brightly colored hair patterns inspired by Art Nouveau sources. Nearly six million copies of the poster were produced for inclusion in a best-selling record album. It became a graphic icon in the collective American experience. -
Miller Blues Band concert poster
Victor Moscoso, Miller Blues Band concert poster, 1967. The shimmering nude female figure in the center of the poster reflects the uninhibitedness of the 1960s. -
“End Bad Breath”
Designed by Seymour Chwast. A mundane advertising slogan, “End Bad Breath,” gained new life when it was combined with a blue woodcut and offset-printed green and red areas in this 1968 poster that protests the American bombing of Hanoi. -
"The Chambers Brothers"
Designed by Victor Moscoso. The vibrant contrasting colors and Vienna Secession lettering inside of the sunglasses implies the drug culture of the period in this 1967 poster for the Chambers Brothers. -
“Day of the Heroic Guerilla”
Designed by Elena Serrano. Poster celebrating the “Day of the Heroic Guerilla”, 1968. An iconographic image of Che Guevara transforms into a map of South America in a radiating image signifying revolutionary victory. -
Poster honoring the Cuban people
Designed by Raúl Martínez. Poster honoring the Cuban people, 1970. Leaders and workers are cheerfully depicted in a comic book drawing style and bright, intense color. -
"The Threepenny Opera"
Seymour Chwast's album cover for "The Threepenny Opera" demonstrates his ability to synthesize diverse resources, the German expressionist woodcut, surreal spatial dislocations, and
dynamic color found in primitive art, into an appropriate expression of the subject. From antiwar protest to food packaging and magazine covers, he has reformulated earlier art and graphics to express new concepts in new contexts. -
Woody Pirtle "Hot Seat Knoll"
Woody Pirtle's work epitomizes the originality of Texas graphics. His logo for Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey Hair evidences an unexpected wit, while his poster called "Hot Seat Knoll" ironically combines the clean Helvetica type and generous white space of modernism with regional iconography.