Salome | Franciszek Starowieyski | Vintage Polish Posters

Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss. The libretto is Hedwig Lachmann‘s German translation of the 1891 French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde, edited by the composer. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer. The opera is famous (at the time of its premiere, infamous) for its “Dance of the Seven Veils“. The final scene is frequently heard as a concert-piece for dramatic sopranos. The poster artist Franciszek Starowieyski (1930-2009) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and Warsaw in the 1950´s. He specialized in poster, drawing, painting, stage designing, and book illustration. Starowieyski could be called the Father of the Communist-era Polish poster era. He was a member of Alliance Graphique International (AGI). Throughout his career his style deviated from the socialist realism that was prevalent during the start of his career and the popular, brightly colored Cyrk posters (he did create one Cyrk poster Homage to Picasso in 1966). He was the first Polish artist to have a one-man show at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, in 1986.