Marian Stachurski Mid-century Polish Poster Designer

Born in Lazy 1931, Marian Stachurski studied at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts under Henryk Tomaszewski, an influential illustrator who taught many of the most successful poster designers in Poland.

Stachurski created film posters from the late-1950s through the mid-70s, for both domestic and international films. He worked in quite a comical cartoon-style manner.

This ice skating smiley criminal and bendy policeman are great !

As with many designers, he employed a range of styles and approaches, but his work is generally characterized by its simplified forms, playful colour schemes, and mix of film stills with painted elements.

There are some lovely textural lines in the posters below.

He was influenced by Polish folk art, as seen in the almost naive approach to figure drawing; their bold outlines and blocky shapes recall the aesthetic of paper cut-out crafts popular in the surrounding region.

His subjects tended to reference the films directly, but with the addition of fanciful or abstract elements. I like this little ‘travel themed selection’ I discovered.

Here are some more examples of his Cinema Posters. Hope these have cheered up your friday, don’t forget to share them : )