SOLIDARNOSC - W samo południe. Solidarity - High Noon - Election poster 1989
SKU: P-8-004493
SOLIDARNOŚĆ - W samo południe - 4 czerwca 1989 [Solidarity - It's High Noon - June 4th 1989]
It was a Sunday morning in 1989 and Gary Cooper was all over Warsaw. Nearly 10,000 posters, which had arrived late the previous evening from the trade union printing house in Italy, by daybreak were pasted across the capital on walls and the sides of buses as they left their depots. The message – after 44 years of one party Communist rule was “High Noon” – time to decide - and the image was of the marshal from the 1952 Western of that name. This poster is an iconic image of the fall of Communism in Europe. It has been exhibited by the V&A as one of the “100 most important posters of the 20th century”. It heralded the first democratic elections – and elected government - in Eastern Europe since World War 2, and it represents the election as the moment when the Communist Party will be brought to justice. It urged the electorate to free itself from the yoke of Communism by voting for the Solidarity Trade Union. The pistol that Gary Cooper had carried in the movie is replaced on the poster by the ballot paper, metaphorically identifying an impending change from rule by force to rule by ballot box. Tomasz Sarnecki, then a third-year student of graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw refused payment for his most important work. Most of the posters, having been pasted in place as typical of most election posters, were torn down and destroyed afterwards. It is considered the last great work of the Polish Poster School. The Museum of Modern Art New York holds an example of this poster in its collection.
Size 70 x 100 cm | 27.5 x 39.5 inches
Date Published: 1989
Type: An original 1989 Polish pro-democracy election poster. Colour offset lithography
Author: Sarnecki, Tomasz
Publication: Solidarity Independent Trade Union
Condition: Good |
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