Fernando the Bull Play | Vintage Polish Poster | Strebejko

The Story of Ferdinand (1936) is the best-known work by the American author Munro Leaf. The children´s book tells the story of a bull who would rather smell flowers than fight in bullfights, sitting in the middle of the bull ring failing to take heed of any of the provocations of the matador to fight. The book’s first run by Viking Press in 1936 sold 14,000 copies. By 1938, the book was selling 3,000 copies per week. That year, it outsold Gone with the Wind to become the number one best seller in the United States. As of 2023, the book has never been out of print and has been translated into more than sixty languages. A first-edition copy sold at auction for US$16,500 in 2014. The poster here is for a theater production of “Ferdinand (Fernando)” in Poland in the 1980´s. Poster artist Wiesław Strebejko (1945-1994) was born in Poland. He was a graduate of the Secondary School of Fine Arts in Bydgoszcz. He specialized in posters, creating over 250 of them. He gained recognition in Poland and abroad (mainly in France). A set designer and interior decorator by profession, he prepared sets for approximately 30 theater plays. Strebejko was one of the first to have a plaque on the Walk of Fame in the Old Market Square in Gorzów. Strebejko’s works are in the Poster Museum in Wilanów, the Lubusz Museum, in the archives of cultural institutions with which he collaborated and in private collections worldwide.