Tadeusz Gronowski

Tadeusz Lucjan Gronowski (1894, Warsaw – 1990) was a graphic artist, painter, illustrator, designer of advertisements, posters and stamps, stage designer and interior architect, regarded as a precursor of the Polish School of Posters and a creator of modern Polish applied graphics. In 1917-1925 he studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Technology, and perfected his painting techniques at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He belonged to the Rytm Group, was a co-publisher of the magazine „Grafika” and a co-founder of the Circle of Advertising Graphic Artists.

Gronowski's innovation lay in a synthetic treatment of form, the use of homogeneous planes of intense colour and refined lettering. He designed advertisements for the largest pre-war firms: Wedel, Herse, Schicht, Orbis and LOT. His poster „Radion washes by itself” (1926) is one of the most recognisable Polish designs, and the logo of LOT Polish Airlines that he designed in 1929 is still in use today. He spent a considerable part of the period 1924-1939 in Paris, collaborating as a decorator with exclusive department stores (Galeries Lafayette, Au Printemps).

He was the author of the visual design of the Polish pavilions at the world's fairs, in Brussels (1935), Paris (1937) and New York (1939), repeatedly awarded gold and silver medals. Solo exhibitions of his works were held, among others, at the Zachęta in Warsaw (1934) and the Institute of Art Propaganda (1938). Extraordinarily prolific and versatile, Gronowski remains a classic whose designs permanently shaped the language of the Polish poster and advertising.