'Against All Odds: Polish Graphic Design 1919-1949" Source: karakter.pl

Graphic Design guru David Heller has published a glowing review of Against All Odds: Polish Graphic Design 1919-1949, a collection of graphic works and posters from a relatively unexplored period of the genre

Heller's blog on printmag.com's site calls the volume an "overflowing treasure-trove of graphic work prior to the 50s-60s golden age of postwar Polish posters" and "a grand collection of typographic and imagistic artifacts". He describes the experience of discovering this "lost and found" collection as being '"in heaven". David Heller is the co-founder and the co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts. He writes the Visuals column for the New York Times Book Review and the Graphic Content blog for T-Style. He is the author, coauthor, and/or editor of more than 120 books on design and popular culture.

"Against All Odds: Polish Graphic Design 1919-1949" is the English-language edition of the book edited by Piotr Rypson, accompanied by his essays on Graphic Design of the period, originally published in Polish under the title "Nie gęsi. Polskie projektowanie graficzne 1919-1949". The English version, translated by Richard Bialy, sets the masters - such as Józef Tom, Ludwik Gardowski, Wojciech Jastrzębowski, Edmund Bartłomiejczyk and Zygmunt Kamiński - alongside less-known names to create a complete picture of the foundation of Polish Graphic Design. The 408-page volume presents a universe of media - book covers, posters, flyers, packaging, periodicals, postage stamps and graphic illustrations in daily publications. It goes back into many of the practical aspects of that world - society, economy, politics and culture - through mainstream and independent design, from commercial advertising to government propaganda. It spans an array of styles - from expressionism and formism to futurism and functionalism, in many ways influenced by what was happening in other parts of the world - from revolutionary Russia to Germany's Bauhaus movement.

It begins with Poland's glory in recovering independence in 1918 and nation-building through the turmoil of two world wars and the troubled transition from an agriculture-based economy to large-scale industry. It traces the nation's progress from a feeble publishing market to an increasingly prolific industry based mainly in Warsaw and Kraków, spreading to Poznań, Lwów (today Lviv in Ukranian territory) and Vilnius.

In the book, Rypson starts off with a simplified map indicating three main aesthetic directions of early Graphic Design in Poland

The first and broadest constituted traditional graphic art, evoking the romantic and Młoda Polska [Young Poland] styles and also harking back to the familiar folk tradition. And it was here that renewed means of expression were sought, ones that – above all in applied art – would suit the new times. Those taking the lead in this current were especially the above-mentioned artists from the Krakow Atelier circle. The graphic designs developed by this circle, drawing inspiration from architecture, the stylistics radiant with the successes enjoyed at the Paris Exhibition of Decorative Arts in 1925, created the bases for the current called Art Déco.

The second constituted the avant-garde which, radically breaking with tradition, drew its ideas from the works of the avant-garde internationale, especially Soviet art. The first signals were sent out by Polish futurists, formists and expressionists, the next – from the circle of those artists inclining towards constructivism. Naturally the impact of these currents was limited in terms of the number of recipients, but in the long run they imposed a powerful influence on graphic design in the twenty odd interwar years, especially in the second half of the nineteen twenties and the following decade.

The third area involved application of the experiences of expressionism and cubism in graphic design, enriched by a lesson concerning the principles of construction for a graphic message, drawn equally from constructivism and neoplasticism, as from architectural drawing. Tendencies towards geometrical synthesis of form were here most often accompanied by decorative ornamentation introducing rhythm and contrasts. From this crucible appeared a stylistic line characterized by elegance of composition, which (most often along with the first group) is usually given the flexible label of Art Déco. On our simplified map this region is perhaps the least homogeneous, but the most densely populated, featuring prominent individuals, who had an enormous impact on this field in the nineteen twenties and thirties and even later.

To begin with, such a map must suffice. The further we move towards the nineteen thirties, the more complicated and densely populated this simple sketch will become.

The book is available for sale on the publisher's website www.karakter.pl

Peter Rypson (born in 1956) is an art critic, art historian and literary writer. He studied archeology at the University of Warsaw, where he also received his doctorate with a specialisation in Visual Poetry. He worked as the Chief Curator of Collections and Gallery at the Center for Contemporary Art in Ujazdowski Castle (1993-1996) and served as Vice-President of the Polish section of the International Association of Art Critics AICA (1999-2003). He has been a guest lecturer at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, USA (1993-99) and the Museum Studies at the Institute of History of Art University (1995-98). He was the Editor-in-Chief of the artistic periodical Obieg between1990 - 1994 and today he is Chairman of the Foundation Programme Foksal Gallery. He has published articles in major art publications, including Odra and Magazyn Sztuki and is the author of six books on art and artists.

Against All Odds: Polish Graphic Design 1919-1949
Author and editor: Piotr Rypson
Translated from the Polish by: Richard Bialy
Title of the Polish edition: Nie gęsi. Polskie projektowanie graficzne 1919-1949
Published October 2011 by Karakter
Number of pages: 408
Hardcover, 220x275
ISBN: 978-83-62376-10-0

Source: www.karakter.pl, imprint.printmag.com