On the occasion of the “Polish Cinema Week” at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG), which aimed to disseminate a retrospective of movies by filmmakers Andrzej Wajda (1926-2016) and Andrzej Munk (1922-1961), the Embassy of the People’s Republic of Poland proposed, as a parallel activity, an exhibition on Cultural Posters in Poland, to be held between 17 and 24 February 1978.

The exhibition, which opened on the same day as the “Polish Cinema Week”, aimed to demonstrate the importance of posters as elements with significant social and aesthetic impact, with the exhibition including 81 posters by 22 Polish artists. The exhibition organisers stuck to the theme of cultural posters, with 28 posters on cinema and the rest advertising a variety of other cultural initiatives. 

Due to the theme of the exhibition, it was decided to publish a poster (rather than a catalogue), on the back of which two texts were written on “Polish Posters”, along with a list of the works displayed. In the text he wrote for the event’s catalogue/poster, architect and art critic Mário de Oliveiro (1914-2013) discussed the Polish cultural and artistic context where the practice of posters was carried out: “Polish posters achieved international fame after they were enshrined at the 10th São Paulo Biennial, where Waldemar Swierzy won one of the grand prizes at the important and significant event. (...) Each Polish poster – produced by the most prestigious artists, like those that are displayed at this event – has the personality of its creator and the creator’s statement, clearly marked in the piece, where there is always a door open to a third party – the viewer – who is invited to join in with the theme. (...) Poland has remained at the forefront of this challenging art, in which there is a language exclusive to posters, the primary aim of which is: for the masses to take the impact necessary from it for its creative goal. (...) Polish posters correspond, then, to their genuine function, since the image is always treated in such a way – symbolic, to a greater or lesser extent – as to occupy a primordial place in the central space of all aesthetic organisation” (O Cartaz Cultural na Polónia, 1978).

The exhibition on Polish posters was unquestionably a highly significant initiative, with an important impact on the media, and presented the Portuguese public with the great development that this kind of artistic expression had achieved in Poland and the confirmation of its relevance in the trajectory of contemporary European art.