Polish Poster | Rzeczywistosc | Reality | Waldemar Swierzy

Antoni Bohdziewicz’s 1961 film Reality (Rzeczywistość) revisits the tense political atmosphere of 1930s Vilnius, where a group of young left-leaning journalists become targets of a high-profile trial. At the center is Julek Szulc, an idealistic student whose involvement in a radical magazine draws him into dangerous ideological crossfire. The film traces his moral awakening and tragic fate, exposing the pressures and consequences faced by youth caught between conviction and repression. A sober, historically grounded drama, Reality remains a striking portrait of courage tested by an unforgiving era. The artist for this poster is Waldemar Swierzy, born in Poland in 1931. He graduated from the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts in 1952. Subsequently he was Professor at the University of Fine Arts in Poznan from 1965 and Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1994. In 1992 the government of Poland issued a postage stamp to honor one of his Cyrk (Circus) posters, ‘Clown with Derby’. Swierzy is one of the Polish School of Posters’ most prolific artists, having created over 2500 posters. He employed unusual concepts with a variety of techniques, frequently mirroring Polish social history from 1950s through 1980s, with a myriad of styles: folk art from the 50s, pop art from the 60s, portraits from the 70s, and TV images from the 80s. In addition, his Jazz Greats series of famous American jazz personalities became so well known that he reissued them in his later years as signed lithographs. The series includes Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles and Charlie Parker, among others. He passed away in 2013.