Jan Lenica. Niebieski ptak (The Blue Bird) (Poster for the 1955 film Il Bidone [The Swindle] directed by Federico Fellini). 1957

Jan Lenica Niebieski ptak (The Blue Bird) (Poster for the 1955 film Il Bidone [The Swindle] directed by Federico Fellini) 1957

  • Not on view

Lenica studied architecture and music before turning to poster design and film animation. From 1954 he worked alongside Tomaszewski at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. Lenica considered this poster a personal favorite; in 1983 he said of it, "For the first time I began to develop a personal interpretation, with a particular Polish resonance. The original title of Fellini’s film, Il bidone, was completely different. But it is a story about a con man, and in Polish a 'Blue Bird' is exactly that." The poster was awarded the 1961 Toulouse-Lautrec Grand Prix at the II International Film Poster Exhibition in Versailles.

Gallery label from Polish Posters 1945–89, May 6–November 30, 2009.
Medium
Lithograph
Dimensions
34 x 23" (86.4 x 58.4 cm)
Credit
Gift of the designer
Object number
374.2014
Copyright
© 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Department
Architecture and Design

Installation views

We have identified these works in the following photos from our exhibition history.
How we identified these works

In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

If you notice an error, please contact us at [email protected].

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

All requests to license audio or video footage produced by MoMA should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills or motion picture footage from films in MoMA’s Film Collection cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For licensing motion picture film footage it is advised to apply directly to the copyright holders. For access to motion picture film stills please contact the Film Study Center. More information is also available about the film collection and the Circulating Film and Video Library.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].