Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, April 26, 2022: Waldemar Świerzy, a Polish poster artist (#1555)

Waldemar Świerzy (1931 – 2013) was a Polish artist.
Born in Katowice, Poland, Waldemar Świerzy 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.

In 1992 the government of Poland issued a postage stamp to honor one of his Cyrk posters, 'Clown with derby'. Swierzy is one of the Polish School of Posters' most prolific artists, having created over 2500 posters.

He employed unusual concepts with a variety of techniques, frequently mirroring Polish social history from 1950s through 1980s, with a myriad of styles: folk art from the 50s, pop art from the 60s, portraits from the 70s, and TV images from the 80s. In addition, 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, Thelonious Monk, Benny Goodman, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie. King Oliver and Lester Young followed a few years later.

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