THe origical 1989 poster

Twenty years after the June 1989 elections, Gary Cooper posters remind of Solidarity’s historic victory.

A poster featuring an image of Gary Cooper from the famous movie High Noon was displayed in Warsaw in June 1989 on the eve of Election Day. Designed  by Tomasz Sarnecki, it depicted the actor carrying not a gun, but a voting ballot, and wearing a Solidarity logo above his sheriff’s badge, which read: ‘It’s high noon, June 4, 1989.’

At a time when Poles celebrate the anniversary of Solidarity’s landslide victory, a huge poster, measuring 36 by 33 metres, modelled on the 1989 poster has been displayed on the eastern side of the Palace of Culture, ironically, Stalin’s gift to Poland in the 1950s. From it, a gigantic figure of a man bearing a striking resemblance to Gary Cooper, passing by the former Communist Party headquarters, looks at the city. He is sporting a moustache, too, very much like Lech Walesa.

“It shows that communism has been defeated in Poland once and for all,” says poster designer Marcin Mroszczak of his work.

Krystyna Ratajczak, in charge of PR at the Warsaw City Council, says that by displaying the poster at the very heart of the capital, Poland sends a spectacular message to the world that Warsaw was the centre of the democratic transformations in the whole of Central and Eastern Europe.

Gary Cooper also reminds the residents of Berlin of the 1989 Polish elections.  A huge banner, measuring 66 by 17 metres, featuring a motif from the historic poster has been displayed on the building of the former Polish Embassy in the German city. A copy of the poster is one of the items at an exhibition The end of communism held at the Polish Institute in Berlin. The original design of the poster was presented to the US Library of Congress by the late Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek in 1999.

In 1989, the poster was printed in France, thanks to financial support from French trade unions. Some 10, 000 copies arrived in Warsaw by air on the night preceding the parliamentary elections. Before polling stations opened, most of the copies were plastered on kiosks and walls in and around Warsaw. (mk/mmj)