TOUR DE FORCE OF VISUAL IMAGINATION
Dive into a wild ride of epic Polish poster art and mind-blowing design – meet the artists, see the work up close, and experience creativity come alive. We are bringing beautiful, witty, and scroll-stopping Polish poster art to Central Texas!
Posters have held a special place in our hearts from the very beginning — our very first project was built around their power of expression, and we’ve kept coming back to that magic ever since. This year, we’re going all in with our biggest celebration yet: Tour de Force of Visual Imagination presents exhibitions (a total of 90 posters), film screenings, moderated conversations with artists, meet-and-greets, and even a hands-on workshop led by a professor of graphic arts.
The series includes three FREE events:
Signature Event — Saturday, October 17, 2026
Come join us for the opening reception! We’ll be unveiling an extensive collection of posters spanning the 1960s to today, with a very special appearance by internationally acclaimed Polish artist Rafał Olbiński, arriving straight from Warsaw.
EXHIBITION (on view Oct 17 – Nov 30)
Two floors of the Round Rock Public Library will come alive with this collection, celebrating the unique phenomenon and artistic movement known as the Polish School of Poster. The exhibition brings together works by celebrated artists including Jan Lenica, Franciszek Starowieyski, Henryk Tomaszewski, Jan Młodożeniec, Waldemar Świerzy, Roman Cieślewicz, Andrzej Pągowski, Rafał Olbiński, Wiktor Górka, Hubert Hilscher, Leszek Żebrowski, Patrycja Longawa, Agnieszka Ziemiszewska, and more. These works were originally created to promote cultural events — opera, theater, film, circus, exhibitions – but some also offer sharp commentary on the social and political issues of their day. Emerging in the decades after World War II, this movement captured the world’s imagination by turning the everyday commercial poster into fine art: metaphor-rich, painterly, and boldly graphic. Its sophisticated visual language, surreal, expressionist style, bold use of color, and macabre, often satirical humor set it apart from advertising imagery anywhere else in the world — and it remains one of the 20th century’s most beloved and influential movements in visual communication, still inspiring designers today.
FILM SCREENING
We’ll kick off the afternoon with a screening of Freedom on the Fence (2009), the 40-minute documentary on the Polish School of Posters co-directed and co-produced by Andrea Marks, who at the time was an associate professor in the Department of Art at Oregon State University. Her fascination with Polish posters led her to tell the story of these posters and the artists who made them. The film features interviews with leading poster designers of the era and rare archival footage. It tells the story of how these artists found room for bold, individual expression within a Communist state — turning the construction fences of postwar Warsaw into an open-air gallery for the masses. It’s the perfect prelude to the moderated conversation with our featured artist.
SPECIAL GUEST: RAFAŁ OLBIŃSKI
One of the shining figures of the Polish School of Posters, Rafał Olbiński joins us for the opening. The exhibition includes a specially curated selection of his work, with several pieces staying up for the whole run of the exhibition. Adding a personal touch to the event, he’ll sit down for a moderated conversation led by his daughter, designer and illustrator Natalia Olbińska.
Born in Kielce, Poland, and trained as an architect at the Warsaw University of Technology, Olbiński became a leading figure of the Polish School of Posters before relocating to New York in 1981, where he built a prolific career as an illustrator and designer.
He authored covers of The New Yorker, The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek, Time, Der Spiegel, and Stern, and he’s lent his graphic talents to opera companies including New York City Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Utah Opera, San Francisco’s Pacific Opera, and Poland’s Grand Theatre–National Opera in Warsaw.
Among more than 150 awards, Olbiński has received the 1994 Prix Savignac (the “International Oscar” for the World’s Most Memorable Poster), gold and silver medals from the Society of Illustrators, Poland’s Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, and the Gloria Artis gold medal – Poland’s highest honor in the arts. Since the 1990s, painting has become central to his practice, carrying his surreal, dreamlike visual language onto large-scale canvases shown around the world. His work lives on in the collections of MoMA, the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, the Poster Museum in Warsaw, and many more across Europe and the U.S
CONVERSATION MODERATOR: NATALIA OLBIŃSKA
Natalia Olbińska is an Associate Art Director at Simon & Schuster, a role she’s held since 2020, having previously worked with Walter Bernard Design Consultancy, Mirko Ilić Corp, and several independent magazines. Originally from Queens, NY, she holds a BFA in industrial design from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA in illustration from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Her work has been recognized by AIGA (50 Books/50 Covers) and the Society of Illustrators.
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