Henryk Tomaszewski

1. What it is — Lithographic poster for OZN (Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego, the semi-official state political bloc of pre-war Poland), 1939, 53.3 × 72.4 cm; the earliest work in this note, five years before Tomaszewski developed his recognisable hand-drawn language.
2. Composition — Photomontage: a row of cannon barrels in the bottom left corner, above them a column of marching soldiers running the full width, the silhouette of warplanes in flight top left, the portrait of an officer (probably a marshal) fitted in on the right — all layers of photographs montaged one over another, with not a single drawn element. The eye enters through the title at the top, then drops down through the planes towards the cannons and the troops.
3. Colour — Monochrome, sepia-beige tones of photographic paper; the contrast is carried by black printed text, not colour.
4. Typography — Printed capitals arranged in three blocks of different sizes ("GWAŁT ZADAWANY SIŁĄ, MUSI BYĆ SIŁĄ ODPARTY" largest at the top; "SWEGO NIE DAMY / NAPASTNIKA ZWYCIĘŻYMY" medium; a small block of text about general mobilisation next to the portrait) — it has nothing to do with his later hand-drawn lettering, it is entirely conventional propaganda typography of its time.
5. Message — Three-second test: military force (cannons, planes, the column) plus a call to defence — readable as a mobilisation call even without reading the text. From five metres the motif of the march and the weaponry remains recognisable.
6. Why exactly this way — In 1939, on the eve of the war, photomontage was the standard language of state propaganda across Europe (a legacy of Soviet and German constructivist posters); the young Tomaszewski (25 years old) works in a given idiom, not his own.
7. What would kill it — Nothing in this work carries his later signature; its value is purely documentary — it shows where he started from, so one can see how complete his later break with this language was.

Principles: — To verify against the image: the typeface has not been identified; the name of the officer in the portrait is not confirmed in the record.

1. What it is — Lithographic poster for the Polish distribution of the French film La Beauté du Diable (directed by René Clair, 1950, with Gérard Philipe), 1954, 58 × 85 cm (Stedelijk Fi_P-7); the MoMA record has no image but preserves a direct quote from the designer about the intention.
2. Composition — Three male figures in a row, same silhouette of hat and coat, arranged left-to-right like a filmic sequence of frames: the first fully black, a solid silhouette; the second with the coat's contour thinned into cream, as if losing density; the third fully green, in a distorted, "melted" run — one figure in three states of transformation. The film's title in a small block at bottom centre, below the third figure.
3. Colour — Three values: black (solid, material), cream/paper white (disappearance), green (devilish, unstable) — colour here literally measures the degree of transformation, it doesn't decorate.
4. Typography — Hand-drawn lettering for the film title, small relative to the figures — the text is a signature, the figures carry the story.
5. Message — Three-second test: the same man, three states, the third state is monstrous-green = the "selling of the soul" Faust story readable as a sequence before a single letter of the title is read.
6. Why exactly this way — According to Tomaszewski's own testimony (MoMA), the Polish state client asked that it not resemble a Japanese, American, Russian, or Swiss poster — the brief was to "find the essence of the film" in one's own language; here the essence is literally a transformation sequence, a film reduced to three static images.
7. What would kill it — If all three figures were the same colour — the whole effect rests on the gradual loss of solidity and materiality across the sequence, not on the difference between individual figures.

Principles: transformacija-kroz-niz-figura To verify against the image: the exact name of the institution/gallery whose copy was photographed at the Stedelijk differs from the MoMA copy by accession number; it is considered the same edition of the poster.

1. What it is — Lithographic poster for Henry Moore's sculpture exhibition in Warsaw, 1959, 69.3 × 99.1 cm; gift of the designer himself to MoMA. According to a secondary source (Seek & Speak / James Victore), this poster is a turning point in which Tomaszewski "builds a sculptural garden out of the letterforms themselves".
2. Composition — A saturated indigo-blue field; the word "MOORE" broken into large white letters across the full width, with the spacing enlarged between "M" and "OORE" so as to leave a gap into which a small grey photographic fragment is fitted, resembling a sample of sculptural form (an organic, rounded shape, like a Moore hole-through-form). The eye reads the letter as form before it reads it as word.
3. Colour — Two values: deep indigo field and white letter, with one grey photographic accent — the same logic of reduction as in the film posters, applied to an exhibition brief rather than a sales brief.
4. Typography — Large, hand-built capitals — the letter is not a font but a drawn shape whose weight and spacing are part of the composition, not an adjustment made afterward.
5. Message — Three-second test: the artist's name alone, broken as if it were itself a sculpture — an abstract form (Moore's hole through stone) translated into the space between letters, before a single word about the exhibition itself is read.
6. Why exactly this way — Moore's sculptures build form around a void (a hole through a mass of stone); Tomaszewski translates that principle into typography — the void BETWEEN letters becomes the place where the form happens, the same trick as in the sculpture.
7. What would kill it — Even spacing between all letters — the whole point is in the irregular, "broken" spacing that turns the letter into a sculptural object, not into a legible inscription.

Principles: jedna-slika-jedna-rijec To verify against the image: which exact Warsaw institution organised the 1959 exhibition is not stated in any available record.

1. What it is — Lithographic circus poster, 1961, 67 × 97.5 cm (Stedelijk 1992.2.0115); one of hundreds of "Cyrk" posters Polish designers made for the state circus administration, here without a single figurative image of a clown or animal.
2. Composition — The word "CYRK" written in large, irregularly cut letters, each a different colour and texture (C green, Y black, R red, K black), surrounded by six hand-drawn spirals of varying size (black, green) and one black dot and a small red rhombus, scattered across a cream ground without a grid or axis.
3. Colour — Three colours on a neutral cream ground (green, black, red), each used both for a letter and for an accompanying graphic mark — colour links the letter to the spirals as part of the same visual system, not as separate decoration.
4. Typography — The letter is a drawing, not a font — each letter a different shape and colour, as if drawn by a different performer in the show; the imperfection of the cut is deliberate.
5. Message — Three-second test: spirals = the dizziness and movement of the circus, scattered colourful letters = playfulness — the message "circus" arrives from the sheer energy of the composition, without a single image of a tent, clown, or animal.
6. Why exactly this way — Unlike most "Cyrk" posters (which depict a specific act on the programme), the brief here is generic — a poster for the genre itself, not for a specific show — so the analogy (spiral = circus movement) is the only route possible without illustrating a scene that doesn't exist.
7. What would kill it — If all letters were the same colour and the same cut — the sense of playful discord that the spirals and letters build together would be lost; a uniform font would turn the poster into an ordinary name, not a visual circus act.

Principles: gest-rukom-nasuprot-rezu analogija-umjesto-ilustracije To verify against the image: the name of the specific circus troupe or season for which the poster was made is not given in the record.

1. What it is — Lithographic theatre poster for the production "Juliusz Cezar" (Shakespeare) at the Teatr Dramatyczny in Warsaw, 1971, 86.6 × 59 cm.
2. Composition — A large portrait of a head on a black ground, shaven skull, with two hollow, purple-rimmed eye-whites without pupils — like an ancient marble or bronze bust, not a living face. The theatre's name in a white block at the top, the title of the play in a white block at the bottom — the head occupies the whole centre, framed by two texts like an inscription on a monument's pedestal.
3. Colour — A green head on a black ground — the colour of patina on bronze or mould on old marble, not the colour of living skin; purple only in the rim of the eyes, as the sole "bloody" accent on an otherwise deathly palette.
4. Typography — Printed capitals in white rectangular fields, strictly separated from the image — the only piece in this note where the text is NOT fitted into the drawing but stands as a plaque-like inscription.
5. Message — Three-second test: a face like a statue = a ruler/historical figure already dead before the play begins — the green colour announces in advance the decay/murder that is the drama's central event, before a single name is read.
6. Why exactly this way — By the time of the play Caesar is already a symbol, not a person — the statue is the right choice because the play begins with historical distance (everyone knows how the story ends); the green/purple palette fuses "monument" with "corpse".
7. What would kill it — Realistic skin instead of patinated stone/metal — the moment the face becomes the portrait of a living person, the idea that we are looking at an already-monument, not a man, is lost.

Principles: — To verify against the image: whether the green colour is a deliberate reference to bronze patina or to marble overgrown with moss is not clarified in the available sources — both readings are visually possible.

1. What it is — Lithographic signage poster for the Warsaw edition of the international theatre festival Théâtre des Nations, 1975, 98.4 × 67.3 cm — a functional entrance marker, not a show announcement.
2. Composition — The whole surface is saturated red; near the top, a black plaque with "Varsovie 1975" (white lettering), below it a cream/gold plaque with a gold border and "THÉÂTRE DES NATIONS" — both plaques imitate museum or monument plaques. Below, hand-written "ENTRÉE" in large black lettering and a white arrow pointing right.
3. Colour — One saturated red ground carries everything; two plaques (black, cream-gold) give hierarchy of information (city/year vs. festival name), black/white for the functional, urgent message (enter here).
4. Typography — Two registers: neat, "official" lettering on the plaques (city, festival) and hand-written, quickly drawn lettering for "ENTRÉE" — the difference in lettering signals the difference in function (ceremonial announcement vs. practical instruction).
5. Message — Three-second test: red + arrow + "ENTRÉE" readable as "enter here" even to someone who knows neither French nor Polish — functional signage that works as a poster and as a sign at the same time.
6. Why exactly this way — The task is not to sell the show but to direct a physical audience on the ground at a festival in a foreign city (Warsaw, international guests) — hence two layers of text: "ceremonial" (name/year/festival) and operational (arrow, entrance).
7. What would kill it — If "ENTRÉE" and the arrow were written in the same neat lettering as the plaques above — the functional message would be lost in decoration; the difference in register IS the message.

Principles: — To verify against the image: the exact location (which building/entrance in Warsaw) the poster was placed at is not stated in the record.

1. What it is — Offset lithograph poster for the television theatre adaptation of Aleksander Fredro's comedy "Damy i huzary" (Teatr TV "Kwadrat"), 1977, 96.8 × 66.5 cm.
2. Composition — Saturated yellow field; in the centre, a smaller framed rectangle (grey ground) with two figures in profile facing each other: a lady with an ornamented white-green hairstyle/hat and a black silhouette of a moustached hussar officer. Below the framed field, a thin line with arrows at both ends (like a technical dimension line on a drawing) and the text "Teatr TV Kwadrat" — as if the scene were literally "measured" with an instrument.
3. Colour — A full yellow field (the most saturated colour in this whole body of work covered here), grey background inside the frame, white-green lady, black hussar silhouette — the contrast of warm yellow against cold grey/black sets the central scene apart as a "specimen under glass".
4. Typography — Hand-written cursive lettering for the title (author's name and title of the piece) above the framed scene — the cursive suggests the written/manuscript tone of a comedy of manners, unlike the printed lettering used for Cezar.
5. Message — Three-second test: a lady and a soldier in profile, "measured" by a dimension line = a witty, "scientific" distance toward a drawing-room comedy about courtship and soldiers — Fredro's humour translated into the humour of the depiction itself (drawing as diagram).
6. Why exactly this way — Fredro is a writer of light, witty comedies of manners; the dimension line is a visual joke that treats the romantic scene as a technical object of measurement — the same degree of irony as in the text of the comedy itself.
7. What would kill it — Removing the dimension line — without it, only an illustration of two figures remains; with it, the scene becomes a comment on the very act of depicting/measuring human relations.

Principles: gest-rukom-nasuprot-rezu To verify against the image: the exact year the TV adaptation aired (as opposed to the poster's year) is not stated in the record.

1. What it is — Advertising poster for the French cigarette brand Gitanes (Seita), 1991 — one of the rare Western commercial clients in this body of work, made in the last decade of his career.
2. Composition — A square sign in the form of a standard traffic prohibition sign (red border, blue diagonal line across the symbol) — but instead of a cigarette, inside is the silhouette of the well-known Gitanes logotype (a flamenco dancer in motion, with legs leaving a trail of smoke/movement behind her). Below the sign, the pink cursive logotype "gitanes".
3. Colour — The red-blue-white of the traffic sign (a universally recognisable convention) plus the black silhouette of the dancer and the pink brand logotype — the colours of the sign are deliberately "borrowed" from a system that sells nothing but prohibits.
4. Typography — The existing cursive Gitanes logotype (not lettering designed by Tomaszewski) — the only work in this note where the typography is not his own hand but someone else's trademark.
5. Message — Three-second test: a recognisable "prohibited" sign, but with marketing content instead of a prohibition = a witty inversion of a universal visual language — the message works precisely because the viewer first reads "prohibited", and only then realises it's an advertisement.
6. Why exactly this way — By 1991, cigarette advertising in Europe is already under pressure from regulation and no-smoking signs in public space; Tomaszewski turns that very visual sign of prohibition into a vehicle for advertising — the same logic of analogy (a borrowed form carries new meaning) as in the Cyrk spiral, here applied to ready-made, borrowed iconography.
7. What would kill it — If the sign had been drawn as an original symbol (not as a recognisable traffic sign) — the whole joke depends on instant recognition of an existing visual convention that is then subverted.

Principles: znak-konvencije-izvrnut analogija-umjesto-ilustracije To verify against the image: the exact distribution medium (street poster, magazine) is not stated in the AGI record.