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

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.

Credit: Gift of the designer...