
Rafał Olbiński
“The architect of our dreams enclosing unrestricted ambiguous visions in his works. A man of the modern Renaissance who moves our sensitivity in every way. A cult figure of Polish and world art. “
(Bogusław Żurek w wywiadzie 9 maja 2021 w Domu Mody Klif)
A graduate of the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Technology (1969). After graduation, he took up graphic arts, collaborating with the “Jazz Forum” magazine, where he was a graphic editor [4]. In 1981 he went to Paris, from where he emigrated to New York a year later [4]. He was prevented from returning to the country by the imposition of martial law by the communist authorities in Poland.
In 1985 he started working as a lecturer at the School of Visual Arts in New York [4]. His works are exhibited in numerous galleries and museums (the Library of Congress, the Toyama Museum of Modern Art, the Carnegie Foundation in New York, and the Poster Museum in Wilanów), as well as collected by private collectors around the world. Rafał Olbiński started working with such magazines as “The New York Times”, “Newsweek”, “Bloomberg Businessweek” or “Der Spiegel”.
In Poland, he dealt with, inter alia, designing album covers, for example by Krzysztof Klenczon Say Old You Was Somewhere (Pronit SX 1614) and Breakout Żagiel Ziemia (Pronit SX 1821). From 1997 to 2003, he regularly created the covers of the Polish psychological monthly “Charaktery” and was a co-creator of the magazine’s graphic image.
His work has been widely awarded at many international competitions. In 1995 he received the first prize in the “New York City Capital of the World” competition – for a poster promoting New York as the capital of the world. In 1994 he became the laureate of the so-called The International Oscar for the most unforgettable poster in the world at the “Prix Savignac” competition in Paris, and in 1976 the first prize in the competition of the Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg. He has accumulated over 100 awards
„Every human has a drive towards immortality that is well known in our mythology. Everyone dreams of eternal life. This is precisely the form of immortality: that our work may survive. Every artist may not admit, but he thinks about it. This is what drives us forward, not money. It is such an artist’s vanity.”
Rafał Olbiński
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