Henryk Tomaszewski made very funny cartoons in the 40s and 50s. They were occasionally banned by censors and often he just printed them as postcards and mailed them to his readers. Speedy pictograms became a popular language of non-censorable public dialogue, cheap posters, graffiti, whatever surface you could write on.
In 1947 he was asked to make posters advertising imported films. Helped by budget and printing restrictions – he was able to convince the govt and distributors to use his drawings instead of pictures of the actors. These images often had a very indirect relation the films themselves.
Later in his career he taught design at the WAFA, to students from all over Europe including the French designers who later created posters for the 68 protests and after that started the Grapus design group, where Thomas Hirschhorn once worked – another artist who appears to be influenced by HT’s ideas.
Henryk Tomaszewski is well recognised today but only in the design community as a sort of witty hand craftsmen, which is a shame because it’s the least interesting thing about him.
Some translations:
1. Tea / Wallpaper / Chair / Tablecloth / Fyodor Dostoevsky
2. INTEGRATE! INTEGRATE!
4. CATCH: Potato Peel / Seaweed / Blood Sausage
6. Tomb of a Pharaoh / Tomb of Mr Kowalski, Polish Service Troops.
7. The battle of the old and the new / The battle with alcohol
A printed magazine full of web links – that exists half in print, half all over the internet.
