Collection: Waldemar Swierzy (1931-2013) Artist Biography and Art Gallery Collection

Waldemar Swierzy was born September 9, 1931 in Katowice, Poland, he graduated from the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts in 1952. He was subsequently Professor in the University of Fine Arts in Poznań from 1965 and Professor in the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1994.  Most famous for his poster art, has won countless awards for his work and had his work shown internationally, including at the Smithsonian Institution’s Traveling Exhibition. Waldemar Swierzy has produced over 2,500 posters, many of which have sold over a million copies. He designed the artwork for the Polish pavilions at the International Fairs in New York, Leipzig, Vienna, Casablanca and Poznan. In 1979 he was appointed Chairman of the International Poster Biennial in Warsaw. In 1992 the government of Poland issued a postage stamp to honor one of his Cyrk posters, 'Clown with derby' in 1992. Waldemar Swierzy is one of the Polish School of Posters' most prolific artists, having created over 2500 posters and in 1994 was made Head of the Poster Studio at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts.

Waldemar Swierzy employed unusual concepts with a variety of techniques, frequently mirroring Polish social history from 1950's through 1980's, with a myriad of styles: folk art from the 50's, pop art from the 60's, portraits from the 70's, and TV images from the 80's. In the mid-1950's his technique visibly changed to become more painting-like. The composition of his posters acquired a new dynamics, as if their form was exploding from the inside. This change was influenced by the new trends in painting, especially in the branch of abstract painting which supported spontaneous expression. Świerzy was the first to introduce elements of painting to poster art, and has remained forever faithful to them. This may explain why his posters are invariably easy to recognize despite their stylistic diversity. He has an extraordinary ability to combine unrestricted painting with a clarity of the graphic sign. Over time his posters start to echo the painting of gesture, lyrical abstraction, Art Nouveau and, more than anything, pop-art. They also betray inspiration drawn from areas as distant from applied graphic arts as folk art, naive paintings, amateur paintings and comic strips. A master of building an organic whole from what seems like clashing elements, Świerzy has used these inspirations to develop a distinct, original style. A variety of styles went hand in hand with a significant broadening of Świerzy's techniques, gouache now complemented by watercolors, crayons, pencil. He would often use several techniques in a single project. Although over the course of years he changed his style a couple of times, he remained true to his beliefs and always put a huge emphasis on the human element of his work. Due to a very specific style of graphic design his posters are always easily recognizable.

Waldemar Swierzy's "music" works also include record sleeve designs, mostly published in the United States, with music by Prokofiev, Liszt, Beethoven and other composers. All in all, he has portrayed over 250 people from the artistic world - painters, sculptors, composers, musicians, filmmakers. Some, like the images of Piotr Potworowski, Tadeusz Brzozowski and Stanisław Teisseyre, are truly unforgettable. 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, Jimi Hendrix, Charles Mingus and Charlie Parker, among others. The lithographs were editioned by S2Art. The first group, which came out in March 2003, were of Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Thelonius Monk, Benny Goodman, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie. King Oliver and Lester Young followed a few years later. The works of Waldemar Swierzy can still be seen in MoMA in New York, Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Staatliche Museum in Berlin, Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, among other places.  Waldemar Swierzy died on November 27, 2013.