During the Communist Era it was difficult enough for Polish film distributors to screen Hollywood movies, without trying to get hold of the original publicity material as well. Subsequently a generation of home-grown artists sprang up, creating their own interpretations of the films in a style inspired by '70s Eastern European propaganda. 

 

Clues as to the subject for this poster can be found amongst the familiar, English writing along the upper edge - "20th Century Fox / Ridley Scott" - this particularly haunting image is Jakub Erol's interpretation of the Sci-Fi Horror, Alien. 

 

This poster comes in the format known as 'Polish Large' and was produced in 1980 (the first release of the film in Poland) and is printed on the finer grade, almost newspaper like, paper typical of Polish film posters from this period. The artist, Jakub Erol was born in 1941 in Zamość. He was a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw where he did his diploma under the guidance of prof. Tomaszewski. His main portfolio of work covers posters, theatre set design and book illustration and he is the winner of numerous awards for achievements in the area of poster design. In this piece his signature can be seen in the lower right hand corner, carefully integrated with the design. A very small stamp from the production company can be seen in the lower left. 

 

The artwork for Polish film posters is amongst the most striking and it's particularly rare and wonderful to find an example where the film in question is an iconic Hollywood hit such as this. The poster has been professionally framed with a conservation grade backing board and is ready to hang. 

 

Including the frame the piece measures 98.5cm high x 69.3cm wide x 2.5cm deep.