Vintage Polish Posters | Visual Art and Design | Hubert Hilscher

This poster celebrates the Polish arts magazine/journal “Projekt” formed in 1955. Projekt magazine was one of the few publications to showcase the art and design of not only work from behind the Iron Curtain, but also of the West.  Projekt magazine had a tortuous history as it struggled to survive against the backdrop of Soviet domination. It ceased to exist in 1983. The poster artist Hubert Hilscher (d. 1999) was a Polish graphic artist born to a German family in Poland. In 1944 when he was only 20 years old, he fought in the Warsaw Uprising as a soldier of the Home Army. In 1949, his interest in printmaking led him to attend the State Academic School of Plastic Arts, which merged with the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where he graduated in 1955. After graduating, Hilscher worked at WAG, a publishing house that provided patronage for poster designers, where he served as art director between 1961-1970. In 1962, he served as art director for the bimonthly magazine Projekt until the magazine ceased production in 1983. Major awards included the Silver Medal at the International Tourist Poster Exhibition in Milan, Italy, Prize of the Year in the Best Warsaw Poster competition 1973, and in 1981, Second prize at the 4th Poster Biennial, Lahti, Finland.