gigi
Kindergarten kid
Posts: 1,470
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Post by gigi on Sept 6, 2008 16:55:30 GMT 1
HENRYK TOMASZEWSKIBefore World War II Polish advertising posters were as graphically startling as any produced in Europe's leading poster capitals - England, France and Germany. But immediately after the war, more somber poster designs appeared that encouraged the reconstruction of a ravaged nation, and soon afterward, the dreary Stalinist aesthetic was injected into most popular art.
In this milieu Henryk Tomaszewski (pronounced tom-a-SHEV-ski) introduced a shockingly playful and beguilingly abstract sensibility that characterized the Polish Poster School. This influential stylistic approach dominated the genre for decades, and from the 60's through the 80's it directly influenced cultural and political poster designers in France, England and the United States.
In contrast to the turgid Socialist Realism practiced in the Soviet Union and other Eastern bloc countries, the Polish poster of the 50's was stunningly colorful, often humorously surreal and decidedly free of any heavy-handed ideological symbolism. Having survived Nazi occupation, Mr. Tomaszewski, who never joined the Communist Party, simply refused to follow official dictates on art.
Henryk Tomaszewski was born on June 10th 1914 in Warsaw, Poland, died on September 11th 2005. He studied painting at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (1934-39, class of professor Mieczysław Kotarbiński), where he later (1952-85) became head of Poster Design Class on the Graphics Faculty, and professor.
Henryk Tomaszewski created his first poster designs in 1936. Till 1939 and then since 1945 till 1947 he was a cartoonist for numerous satirical magazines. In 1947 together with Eryk Lipiński he started to design posters for Film Polski (the one and only Polish national movie distribution company). In years 1950-52 Tomaszewski was a stage designer in Warsaw "Syrena" Theater. Henryk Tomaszewski was member of the elitist Aliance Graphique International (since 1957). He was also granted the title of Honorary Royal Designer for Industry by Royal Society of Arts in London.
His major awards include: * International Biennal of Arts, Sao Paolo 1963, first prize * International Poster Biennal, Warsaw, Silver Medal 1966, Gold Medal 1970, Silver and Gold Medals 1988, Bronze Medal 1994 * National Polish Poster Biennal, Katowice, Gold Medal 1967, Silver Medal 1975; Grand Prix 1979, 1987, 1989 * Poster Biennal Lahti, First Prize 1979 * International Poster Triennial, Toyama, Bronze Medal 1991, Silver Medal 1994 * ICOGRADA Excellence Award 1986. poster.com nytimes.com A few Tomaszewski's posters:
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Post by valpomike on Sept 6, 2008 17:27:29 GMT 1
Gigi,
Do you know of a Polish Artist by the name of Stanislaw Dabrowski? I have one of his old paintings, and still am unable to find what it is worth, for insurance. Can you help on this. I have sent off photo's to several places in Poland, without even a answer.
Mike
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gigi
Kindergarten kid
Posts: 1,470
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Post by gigi on Sept 6, 2008 17:46:10 GMT 1
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Post by Bonobo on Sept 6, 2008 22:14:34 GMT 1
Gig, thank you for remembering about poster art. You are again ahead of me .... Polish poster used to be known in the world as the Polish School of Poster. Its golden years were from 1950s to 1980s. Tomaszewski was one of contributors to it. www.polish-poster.com/polish-poster-school.htm After World War II Polish society gradually began to regard poster design as an art form equal in importance to painting. On the one hand there were political propaganda posters drawn from the Soviet influence, and on the other were posters on cultural topics, particularly films as people flocked to the movies. Movie posters that evolved were unlike most in that a scene was rarely shown. Instead the artists tried to capture the essence of the film or use a visual metaphor to sum up the impression of it. This trend caught on and spread to other fields. Posters became an outlet for individual artistic expression Henryk Tomaszewski defined what later became known as the Polish School of Poster Art - Polish poster school by basing his work on artistic statement and on graphic interpretation of the film. Jan Lenica and Wojciech Fangor were among the first to introduce painters’ tools to poster design through use of texture and strong color masses and freedom with which they shaped their images. The posters of polish poster school, the height of the Polish school of poster art, were full of life and deeply humane content. So distinctive was Polish poster art that it became recognized worldwide. Tadeusz Trepkowski is known as the father of the postwar political poster. His 1952 anti-war poster of a bombed out building inside the silhouette of a descending bomb and the single word Nie! (No!) is a classic. In the sixties the art form favored simplicity, being purely graphic, cool, and devoid of emotion. Critics regard the mid-fifties through the early seventies as the golden age of Polish posters The work of the "second generation" Polish poster artists who "built" the Polish Poster School all had one thing in common: a distinctly personal gesture in one form or another. This characteristic is unique to the posters of Poland. Today's Polish poster art still has this characteristic. Their posters are still predominately made with brushes, pastels, and paints. One sees very little photography in these posters. To them the only valid expression of one's ideas is by human hand to paper. In a way this is what makes Polish Poster Art unique even today.Each poster is a genuine expression of the artist's feeling toward the subject, not just a catchy slogan or image. www.citrinitas.com/history_of_viscom/modernists.htmlHere are a couple of posters: [img src=" mgorowski.w.interia.pl/68d.jpg"][/img] More circus posters Film posters www.agrayspace.com/posters/Political posters transsib.com.pl/polski_plakat.htmlVarious www.flickr.com/groups/polish_posters/pool/page4/
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Post by Bonobo on Sept 6, 2008 22:15:12 GMT 1
Guess what American films are represented by these posters. Now, looking at them, I realise they were on in communist times. Poland was certainly the merriest barracks in Warsaw Pact block. We could watch films which Soviets or Czechs could only hear about on foreign radio stations. E.g, The Great Escape with Steve McQueen was shown only in Poland and Romania - see the collection of posters from different countries, among them Polish and Romanian www.stevemcqueen.org.uk/McQueen/10Escape/Most films were brought 2 or 3 years after their premiere, e.g., Zelig was released in 1983 and I remember watching it in 1986 (after I passed my entrance exam, I went to the cinema and saw 3 films on one day, it was my record). Some films were imported in the year of release in the West (The Return of the Jedi) and others a dozen years after their premiere: Rosemary`s Baby was shown in Poland in 1983. 31 32 33 34 we have had this polish poster of gremlins hanging in our house for a few years. i just had it re-framed and it looks so good! polish posters shop has tons of great ones, i had the hardest time picking which to post. they are all so graphic and it is fun to figure out what movie they are from.35 36
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Post by valpomike on Sept 6, 2008 22:59:11 GMT 1
Gigi,
There is a high cost for this information, and to join. I just want one painting value.
Mike
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Post by Bonobo on Sept 6, 2008 23:32:21 GMT 1
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Post by valpomike on Sept 7, 2008 0:55:51 GMT 1
I have been told, by some experts, that it can be worth several thousand dollars. I just to need how much for insurance.
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Post by locopolaco on Sept 7, 2008 1:11:04 GMT 1
bonobo, tell us more about this one, please.
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Post by valpomike on Sept 7, 2008 18:18:34 GMT 1
Anyone have any new ideas, that can help me find the worth of this painting? I am open to any ideas, that can help.
Mike
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Post by Bonobo on Sept 7, 2008 19:14:55 GMT 1
Anyone have any new ideas, that can help me find the worth of this painting? I am open to any ideas, that can help. Mike I am afraid the professional expertise of the painting will have to cost sth. Unless an art expert joins our Polish Forum and does it for free..... ;D ;D ;D.
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gigi
Kindergarten kid
Posts: 1,470
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Post by gigi on Sept 8, 2008 18:40:23 GMT 1
bonobo, tell us more about this one, please. It is a Polish election poster featuring a photo of Gary Cooper from the movie "High Noon" (note the ballot in his hand). Prepared for the first almost-free parliamentary elections in Poland in 1989, the poster shows Gary Cooper as the lonely sheriff in the American Western, "High Noon." Under the headline "At High Noon" runs the red Solidarity banner and the date -- June 4, 1989 -- of the poll. It was a simple but effective gimmick that, at the time, was misunderstood by the Communists. They, in fact, tried to ridicule the freedom movement in Poland as an invention of the "Wild" West, especially the U.S.
But the poster had the opposite impact: Cowboys in Western clothes had become a powerful symbol for Poles. Cowboys fight for justice, fight against evil, and fight for freedom, both physical and spiritual. Solidarity trounced the Communists in that election, paving the way for a democratic government in Poland.rwnetwork.net
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Post by Bonobo on Sept 8, 2008 19:46:05 GMT 1
Prepared for the first almost-free parliamentary elections in Poland in 1989, the poster shows Gary Cooper as the lonely sheriff in the American Western, "High Noon." Under the headline "At High Noon" runs the red Solidarity banner and the date -- June 4, 1989 -- of the poll. It was a simple but effective gimmick that, at the time, was misunderstood by the Communists. They, in fact, tried to ridicule the freedom movement in Poland as an invention of the "Wild" West, especially the U.S.
But the poster had the opposite impact: Cowboys in Western clothes had become a powerful symbol for Poles. Cowboys fight for justice, fight against evil, and fight for freedom, both physical and spiritual. Solidarity trounced the Communists in that election, paving the way for a democratic government in Poland.rwnetwork.net Exactly. Sheriffs fought for justice (unless they were corrupted). Solidarity was advertised as such a sheriff who is able to clean the town of all bad elements, i.e., bandits, harlots and communists. ;D ;D ;D ;D Gary Cooper back in town 27.05.2009 09:11
THe origical 1989 poster
Twenty years after the June 1989 elections, Gary Cooper posters remind of Solidarity's historic victory.
A poster featuring an image of Gary Cooper from the famous movie High Noon was displayed in Warsaw in June 1989 on the eve of Election Day. Designed by Tomasz Sarnecki, it depicted the actor carrying not a gun, but a voting ballot, and wearing a Solidarity logo above his sheriff's badge, which read: `It's high noon, June 4, 1989.'
At a time when Poles celebrate the anniversary of Solidarity's landslide victory, a huge poster, measuring 36 by 33 metres, modelled on the 1989 poster has been displayed on the eastern side of the Palace of Culture, ironically, Stalin's gift to Poland in the 1950s. From it, a gigantic figure of a man bearing a striking resemblance to Gary Cooper, passing by the former Communist Party headquarters, looks at the city. He is sporting a moustache, too, very much like Lech Walesa. "It shows that communism has been defeated in Poland once and for all," says poster designer Marcin Mroszczak of his work.
Krystyna Ratajczak, in charge of PR at the Warsaw City Council, says that by displaying the poster at the very heart of the capital, Poland sends a spectacular message to the world that Warsaw was the centre of the democratic transformations in the whole of Central and Eastern Europe.
Gary Cooper also reminds the residents of Berlin of the 1989 Polish elections. A huge banner, measuring 66 by 17 metres, featuring a motif from the historic poster has been displayed on the building of the former Polish Embassy in the German city. A copy of the poster is one of the items at an exhibition The end of communism held at the Polish Institute in Berlin. The original design of the poster was presented to the US Library of Congress by the late Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek in 1999.
In 1989, the poster was printed in France, thanks to financial support from French trade unions. Some 10, 000 copies arrived in Warsaw by air on the night preceding the parliamentary elections. Before polling stations opened, most of the copies were plastered on kiosks and walls in and around Warsaw.
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gigi
Kindergarten kid
Posts: 1,470
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Post by gigi on Sept 12, 2008 22:33:23 GMT 1
A few more movie posters... Oklahoma, 1955 Born Free, 1968 Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, 1971 Back to the Future, 1985 Bachelor Life in a Foreign Country, 1992
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gigi
Kindergarten kid
Posts: 1,470
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Post by gigi on Sept 20, 2008 15:53:07 GMT 1
Some Polish travel posters... 1939 World Fair Polish travel office, 1958 1967, Wiktor Górka Polish travel office, 1960's 1972, Jan Lenica 1970's, Jan Mlodozeniec 1970's Waldemar Swierzy 1980's/1990's, Waldemar Swierzy
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Post by valpomike on Sept 20, 2008 19:08:38 GMT 1
Gigi,
Do you know where you can buy the travel posters shown?
Mike
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gigi
Kindergarten kid
Posts: 1,470
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Post by gigi on Sept 20, 2008 21:04:55 GMT 1
Gigi, Do you know where you can buy the travel posters shown? Mike They are great, aren't they? I really like vintage travel posters. Unfortunately, I don't think you can buy all of them. The 1939 one is rare. It's available, but it costs $1475! The second one is owned by the Newark public library. I haven't seen it for sale online anywhere. But here are a couple of sources for some of the others: contemporaryposters.com/category.php?Category_ID=141www.poster.com.pl/gorka-6.htm
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gigi
Kindergarten kid
Posts: 1,470
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Post by gigi on Mar 27, 2009 23:08:53 GMT 1
These posters are a bit funny because a couple don't really seem to go with the movie they are advertising. Alien The Fly Weekend at Bernie's Planet of the Apes
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Post by Bonobo on Mar 27, 2009 23:38:26 GMT 1
These posters are a bit funny because a couple don't really seem to go with the movie they are advertising. Disgusting! This fly, yuk@ But I remember the one advertising Alien. I think I saw the film in 1981 or 82 (communist distributors usually delayed for finacnial reasons) .
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Post by Bonobo on Jul 12, 2009 21:50:18 GMT 1
www.posterpage.ch/exhib/ex130sol/ex130sol.htmThis web exhibition accompanies the current exhibition Solidarnosc 1980 - 2005 Solid Art, curated by Wladyslaw Serwatowski from the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw. Solidarnosc was a workers movement in Poland, led by Lech Walesa, which initiated the political changes in Eastern Europe that contributed (some say led) to the downfall of the Soviet empire in 1990. Serwatowski was an eye witness and participant at the beginning of Solidarnosc in Gdansk in 1980, as he recounts in his text below. Wieslaw Grzegorczyk "To the victims of martial law" When the political situation became a threat to the communist governement, General Jaruszelski declared a State of War on December 13, 1981 which lasted until July 22, 1983. Lech Walesa was imprisoned, and many people were killed.Wieslaw Grzegorczyk "The 20th anniversary of Rev. Jerzy Popieluszko's death" The outspoken priest and Solidarnosc supporter was murdered by the Security Forces in 1984 when he could not be intimidated or silenced.Grzegorz Marszalek The two slashes on the cheek of Walesa are the attributes of the Holy Virgin of Czestochowa Piotr Mlodozeniec An election poster for Lech Walesa, interpreting his portrait and initials in a masterful way as a polish anchor. Andrzej Pagowski "The workers ' 80" Leszek Szurkowski "The man of hope" is an allusion to the famous Wajda movies "The Man of Iron" and the "The Man of Marble" I intentionally included two more works into the exhibition, as they enrich the poster collection on display, even though they do not quite fulfil the qualification criteria mentioned above. # The crying pigeon (Pol. Placzacy golab)(1956) is a lithography by Franciszek Starowieyski. It is not commented by any text, but it conveys a strong energy of solidarity with the Hungarians, who, seeking justice, freedom and democracy, were revolting against communist rule in 1956.
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Post by Bonobo on Aug 6, 2009 20:46:56 GMT 1
bonobo, tell us more about this one, please. The Writing on the Wall By Isia Jasiewicz NEWSWEEK Aug 3, 2009
NWK Caption: Solidarity election campaign poster (outside Solidarnosc HQ after apparent overwhelming victory for labor org's candidates). (Photo by Chris Niedenthal//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images) -- IPTC Caption: Solidarity election campaign poster (outside Solidarnosc HQ after apparent overwhelming victory for labor org's candidates).
It was a Sunday morning in 1989, and Gary Cooper was all over Warsaw. Nearly 10,000 posters, plastered around the city at daybreak, bore the image of the marshal from the 1952 Western High Noon. His photograph was black and white, save for the red Solidarity logo placed on his chest, and he carried a paper ballot in place of a pistol. The poster's inscription was simple: IT'S HIGH NOON, JUNE 4, 1989.
That paper sheriff was on a mission: to encourage Poles to vote for Solidarity in that day's parliamentary elections. In the Western, the hero always wins; in the elections, Solidarity secured a landslide victory, and the High Noon poster became an emblem of triumph and new beginning. Yet the poster itself marked an ending. It was the last great work of the Polish Poster School.
Half a century before Twitter became the medium of choice for underground communications in Iran, artistically innovative Poles used the power of images to slip subversive messages past the communist watchdogs. In an age when "print" means "old," and visual appeal takes a back seat to speed, it's hard to believe what a powerful weapon lithography could once be.
Twenty-four posters from the heyday of the Polish school are on view at New York's Museum of Modern Art until November. The works, clustered together as they would have been on a poster kiosk in Warsaw, chronicle a movement that actually benefited from the oversight of the communist regime. Posters advertising plays, films, circuses, and exhibitions were subject to strict control, but they also received state funding. Censorship also provided a strangely nurturing environment for creativity, especially in the way artists borrowed from surrealism and expressionism to develop a language of metaphor. In one poster advertising a 1981 production of Macbeth, the king's face appears trapped in a kind of brick bandage resembling a castle. His eyes are obscured, his jaw locked in place. To the censor, it showed a face with a castle; to the viewer, it could speak volumes about the blinding, mind-numbing danger of power.
It's been 20 years since Cooper's marshal marched into Warsaw, leaving the country—and its posters—changed forever. State support for artists is gone, and sales-driven, artless advertising is king. In Poland (as in the United States), visual culture is saturated with pop-up ads and all-too-obvious sales slogans. It's nearly impossible to find socially compelling commercial art. Maybe the Polish Poster School can take us back to that high noon, when a picture really could speak a thousand words.
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Post by locopolaco on Aug 7, 2009 7:21:51 GMT 1
dzieki bo.
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 1, 2010 10:14:40 GMT 1
The poster by a Polish artist, Maria Milenko, won the first prize in the contest for a poster to celebrate the Day of Europe. The final of the contest contained 9 works from other countries. Some of them: See the results and posters here: www.designeurope2010.eu/Artist www.tvn24.pl/-1,1641005,0,1,jej-plakat-zawisnie-w-calej-europie,wiadomosc.html
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 2, 2010 22:24:52 GMT 1
The poster by a Polish artist, Maria Milenko, won the first prize in the contest for a poster to celebrate the Day of Europe. Mike, you haven`t commented on the artist and her work yet. I am really surprised and even worried. What has happened?
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Post by valpomike on Feb 3, 2010 2:03:13 GMT 1
Can't tell if she is a HOT POLISH WOMEN, or not, but could be.
Mike
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Post by Bonobo on May 28, 2011 23:06:57 GMT 1
Polish-ed story Rare old posters of Poland weave the story of the evolution of the discipline, writes SHAILAJA TRIPATHI POTENT VOICE Even though posters History has often held within its multi-layered folds the names that have taken up cudgels to fight the unjust. Artists, in different parts of the world, figured in the space with noticeable regularity. They rebelled against excesses, vented their emotions in the face of tragedies through the means known best to them. Poland's long and continuous subjugation to foreign powers — the Austro-Hungarian empire and then the Soviet Union, led many artists to use the medium of posters. Coupled with other factors, gradually, poster art flourished and reached its peak under the Soviet communist regime in the '60s. An exposition of rare old posters organised by the embassy of the Republic of Poland in Delhi is currently on in the Capital, but sadly, the show doesn't include the path-breaking pieces, smeared with dissent, that the country has witnessed. Quite expectedly, the embassy has played safe and instead churned out a collection of film, theatre, opera and circus posters made by veterans like Waldemar Swierzy, Andrzej Pagowski, Jan Lenica, etc. which, if not bold, are delightful for sure. The posters were in circulation 1890 onwards in the country to promote activities, at times propagating ideologies, but it wasn't until the period of the 1950s to '60s that the genre really came into its own and attained pure artistic qualities. That juncture eventually came to be called the Polish school of posters and quite a few posters in the show come from here. However, there are works from the '70s, '80s and '90s as well, and 16 artists in all have been chosen to give a glimpse of the discipline. The exhibition features two seminal works of Lenica, one of the foremost polish designers. One of his posters for the opera of Alban Berg titled “Wozzeck” made in 1964 (considered one of his finest works which won the Grand Prix at the Poster Biennial in Warsaw in 1966) has a huge red head with lips wide open in the middle of the face. His poster for “Faust” designed for the opera of Charles Gounod shows how Lenica brought painting technique to poster making. Another star on the horizon was Waldemar Swierzy. His movie poster for the Swedish film Viskninngar och rop (1974) directed by Ingmar Bergman displayed at the exhibition is among the many done by Swierzy, who now works as a professor at Poznan Academy of Fine Arts. The film was released as Whispers and Cries in English. Swierzy's posters were distinct on account of their humour and elements of pop art. From what started out as a means to express angst against the totalitarian regime later evolved into a distinct art form. Hemal Paliwal, cultural coordinator of the embassy, who has curated the show from the embassy's own collection says that poster art in Poland later came to be at par with paintings in stature but due to its reduced demand, the scene now lacks the vibrancy it once had. It is believed that there was once a time in Poland that no event, opera, theatre or film screening was deemed complete without posters. A 40-minute documentary Freedom on the Fence has been made, focussing on the significance of posters in Poland's social, cultural and political arena. From expressionism to art deco, surrealism to pop art, poster artists were seeking myriad influences to create their works. Film, theatre and opera posters did not lack artistic depth but it was really the cyrk or circus posters that were said to be masterpieces. Announcing the new circus show in town, they took influences from fantasy, folk tales.
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Post by vratislavian on Dec 17, 2011 0:07:53 GMT 1
Heh, I was looking through this thread to see if my favourite poster is here (I was going to copy it here) and it was the last one!
Posters from Poland are ace!
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