Patna | Vintage Polish Posters

Patna is the name of the ship in the Joseph Conrad novel, “Lord Jim“, published in 1899 and 1900 as a serial in Blackwood´s Magazine. An early and primary event in the story is the abandonment of a passenger ship in distress (the “Patna”) by its crew, including a young British seaman named Jim. Jim is publicly censured for this action and the novel follows his later attempts at coming to terms with himself and his past and seeking redemption and acceptance. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Lord Jim 85th on its list of the 100 best English language novels of the 20th century. The artist for this work is Janusz Wiktorowski, born in 1939. He was an illustrator, painter and designer who studied art in Lodz, Poland. Wiktorowski worked designing posters and collaborated with several magazines as a satiric illustrator. He was predominantly inspired by  the Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s and explored ideas concerning the sublime and spirituality. He was awarded Second Prize in Warsaw in 1963 and First Prizes in Lodz and Helsinki in 1964.