Poster child: Franciszek Starowieyski, 1930-2009
When a Hollywood producer talks
about reducing a movie concept to a poster, he or she probably wasn’t thinking
of the work of Franciszek Andrzej Bobola Biberstein-Starowieyski. The great
Polish painter, graphic artist and poster designer died February 23 at the age
of 79.
Many Polish film posters transcend the
genre with their nightmarish, black comic imagery and visual wit, but Starowieyski
was the doyen of them all, his work
evocative of Hieronymous Bosch, Francis Bacon and, inevitably, Salvador Dali
"I want to create a world which is independent from our notions
of humanity," he said. With that philosophy in mind, I wonder what kind of poster he would have
made of, say, the “Jonas Brothers 3-D” movie.