Film Poster for Toast (1969 Documentary)
This piece is a poster design by Polish poster designer Waldemar Świerzy for the 1969 documentary Toast by filmmaker Jan Łomnicki.
Toast (also known as The Toast) was a propaganda documentary about celebrating the first 25 years of Communist rule in Poland. The poster features several colorful shapes placed in a rectangle while two large white flowers jut right diagonally out of the lower middle left. Behind the lowest flower the film's title creeps towards the side in a large serif wood type style font. several small pieces of sans-serif text are also contained within the image providing the directors name and a tagline among other things.
During communist rule Poland's government oversaw the film industry, allowing only a handful of companies to create film posters. Rather than comission designers these companies would often turn to fine artists to create works Waldemar Świerzy (1931-2013) was one such artist. After graduating from the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts he began working in the film industry. Throughout the 1950s onwards Świerzy would become one of Poland's most prolific poster designers, making designs for movies such as the 1964 musical My Fair Lady (dir. George Cukor), The Muppet Movie (1979, dir. James Frawley), and Kagemusha (1980, dir. Akira Kurosawa). Its estimated Świerzy created anywhere from upwards of 1000 to 2500 poster designs depending on the source. Alongside his active design work, from 1965 until his death Świerzy worked as a professor at several Polish fine art universities. While primarily known for his portraiture, focused design work he was quite a versatile artist who also retained a strong sensibility in abstract and geometric design in a vast amount of technical styles. His work has been shown in exhibitions around the world, with reprints of his designs still being issued by his estate over 10 years since his death in 2013.
Jan Łomnicki. (1929-2002) was a Polish filmmaker known for his wartime and politically focused films and television series . Most of Łomnicki's films were made during the communist rule of Poland (1945-1989) and primarily focus on depicting life in Poland during that time period or World War II.
