Vintage Polish Posters | Bal Maskowy | Jan Aleksiun

A Masked Ball (Un ballo in maschera) is an 1859 opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The plot concerns the assassination in 1792 of King Gustav III of Sweden, who was shot as the result of a political conspiracy while attending a masked ball, dying of his wounds thirteen days later. The poster artist Jan Aleksiun (b. 1940) is a graphic artist, painter, specializing in posters and drawings, and an academic teacher associated with the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Wrocław, Poland, and was its second rector from 1980 to 1982. In 1990 he obtained the title of professor and between 1999 and 2005 he was the dean of the Faculty of Graphics. He took part in numerous exhibitions in Poland and abroad and was the winner of awards in posters, graphics and drawing, including the award of the Minister of Culture and Art in 1994. In 2017 he was awarded the Knight´s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.