Franciszek Starowieyski: Master of Form

Fanfare, 1960 (Zbuntowana Orkiestra)

“What is special [about Starowieyski] is the combination of his art, his talent and his very big and extraordinarily strange personality, as for a communist country,” curator Magdalena Czubinska told Polish Radio correspondent Nick Hodge.

Drawing comparisons with Pop Art guru Andy Warhol, Czubinska noted that Starowieyski aimed to make his whole life a spectacle, playing what was “a game with the public.”

Born in the foothills of the Carpathians in 1930, nobleman Starowieyski developed a fascination with the Baroque era and he insisted he would have felt much more at home in the 17th century.

Lokis (1970)

As of 1970, he backdated all his artworks by 300 years, and fifteen years later he became the first Polish artist to have a solo show at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).

“His posters are famously often more visually memorable than the films or plays they were promoting,” UK film writer and DVD producer Michael Brooke reflects in this audio report.

“Lokis is a decent little horror film, but there's nothing on screen that matches the poster's sense of creeping evil.”

Sixty-four of Starowieyski's film posters are included in the current show.

'Franciszek Starowiejski (1930-2009): A Master of Form' runs at the National Museum in Krakow until 19 January