Midnight Cowboy Poster (Polish A1)

A vintage Polish film poster for Midnight Cowboy, designed by  Waldemar Swierzy.

This is an official limited edition authorised reprint from Poland of the iconic and extremely collectible 1973 Polish poster ‘Midnight Cowboy’ (Nocny Kowboj) by Waldemar Swierzy. The first limited edition was printed in 2016.

Waldemar Swierzy was born in 1931 in Katowice. He learnt his art at the University of Kracow under the incredible graphic artist and teacher Jozef Mroszczak, and the painting professor Rafal Pomorski, graduating in 1952. Many of Waldemar Swierzy’s poster designs have a distinct painterly style. Over the course of his career he created around 1000 published poster works and was the most prolific artist from the Polish School of Posters. Swierzy also taught graphics and poster design; as Head of Graphics at the School of Fine Arts in Poznan and Head of the Poster Studio at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. He also lectured in Mexico and Germany. Waldemar Swierzy worked on the jury at many international poster exhibitions and competitions and won many awards of his own. In 1997 he was appointed Honorary Professor of the Jan Matejko Fine Arts Academy in Krakow.

Note from the printing house in Poland: “Our offset prints are made on matte paper similar to the original. We keep the poster formats from the period, we try to faithfully reproduce the colours of old prints. Small editions, limited to 500 copies, respect all copyrights belonging to the graphic artists or their heirs.”

This poster is from Projekt 26, a South London based leading dealer of vintage Polish posters from the Soviet era. They source and sell original mid-century posters and magazines from suppliers in Poland and all over the world. They partner with artists and their families to reproduce much-loved works, using printing methods and paper that are true to the original editions.