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Cyrk Posters

Cyrk, contemporary Polish circus posters, are a genre of the Polish School of Posters. Cyrk posters are characterized by their display of aesthetic qualities such as painterly gestures, linear design, hand-lettering, metaphors, humor, and vibrant colors. Based usually on a single theme and not meant to be advertisement. In an attempt to interest people in the circus, they used common symbols that represented the circus.

External Links

Contemporary Posters

Museum of Modern Art, Polish Posters 1945-1989

International Vintage Poster Dealers Association

Waldemar Swierzy, born in Katowice, Poland in 1931 graduated from the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts in 1952. Professor in the Academy of Fine Arts, Poznan (1965 - present). Professor in Academy of Fine Art, Warsaw (1994 - present). His reputation in Poland is such that the government issued a postage stamp to honor one of his Cyrk posters (#186) 'Clown with derby' in 1992. Swierzy is one of the Polish School of Posters’ most prominent and prolific artists who created over 2500 posters.

He employs 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, & TV images from the 80s In addition, his Jazz Greats series of famous American jazz personalities has become so well-known that he recently reissued them as signed lithographs. The series includes: Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Jimi Hendrix, Charles Mingus & Charlie Parker among others.
Major awards:
•1956 -Tadeusz Trepkowski Prize, Warsaw, PL
•1959, 1962 -1st (Toulouse-Lautrec) Prize -1st & 3rd International Film Posters Exhibition, Versailles, FR
•1961, 1962, 1963, 1966 August -”Best Poster of the Month” (CYRK PC-185), 1968, 1971, 1972, 1975 February -”Best Poster of the Month” (CYRK PC-241), 1976, 1980, 1983, 1988 -”Best Poster of the Year”, Warsaw’s Best Poster Competition, PL
•1964 -1st Prize -Film Poster, “Poster of the Year”, Copenhagen, DK
•1965 -1st Prize, 1971-1st Prize, 1975-1st Prize, 1977-2nd Prize, 1985-1st Prize, 1987-2nd Prize, 1989-1st Prize -Polish Poster Biennale, Katowice, PL
•1967, 1971 -Award, Posters -Polish Ministry of Culture & Art, Warsaw, PL
•1970 -1st Prize -X Art Biennale di Sao Paulo, BR
•1972 -2nd Prize, 1976 -1st Prize -4th & 6th International Poster Biennale, Warsaw, PL
•1975-1st Prize, 1980 -2nd Prize, 1985-1st Prize -Key Art Award, Posters -The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles
•1977 -1st Prize -II Poster Biennale, Lahti, FI
•1985 –1st Prize in the Annual Film Poster Competition of “The Hollywood Reporter”, Los Angeles
•1985 -1st, 3rd Prize -”Jazzpo”, International Jazz Poster Exhibition, Bydgoszcz, PL

Major exhibitions include:
1960 – Galerie in der Biberstrasse; Vienna, Austria
1964 – Documenta Kassel; Kassel; Germany
1978 – Poster Museum Wilanow; Warsaw, Poland
1980 – Poliforum Sigueros; Mexico City, Mexico
1982 – Galerie Oxe; Copenhagen, Denmark
1989 – Taldemuseo; Lahti, Finland
1991 – Creation Gallery GB, Tokyo, Japan
1993 – Festival de Affiche, Chaumont, France
2000 – Plakat Kunsf Hof; Essen, Germany
2001 – Museum of Contemporary Art; Teheran, Iran
2002 – Muzeum Miasta Wroclawia; Wroclaw, Poland

Other exhibitions:
Moscow, USSR (1965); Pecs, Hungary (1965); Caracas, Venezuela (1970); Stockhom, Sweden (1976); Jacksonville, USA (1984); Prague, Czech Republic (1985); Poznan, Lodz, Szczecin, Poland (1986); Kassel, Germany (1990)

Member - Alliance Graphique International [AGI] since 1965.