What were the famed ‘picassos’? Which coffee service design attained a cult status? What kind of imagery came to life in the ceramic figurines designed by the artists collaborating with the Industrial Design Institute (IWP) in Warsaw, now highly sought-after collectibles? Not only will the exhibition at the National Museum in Wrocław satisfy curiosity and delight the eye but it will also present – for the first time in Poland – the output of the designers working for Polish porcelain works. 
So far, exhibitions devoted to the period’s design and applied arts focused on the designers connected to the IWP but neglected those working for particular factories – emphasises Dr. Barbara Banaś, the exhibition’s curator. This presentation fills in the gap by featuring tableware and decorative pieces from the state-run factories in Wałbrzych, Jaworzyna Śląska, Chodzież, Ćmielów, Bogucice, Pruszków, Tułowice, Włocławek and the privately-owned Steatyt factory in Katowice.

The “New Look” style
The first harbingers of the style later to be termed “The New Look” appeared prior to World War II. The term itself was coined in connection with Christian Dior’s first and memorable haute couture collection shown in Paris in 1947. In the decorative arts, its characteristic features were asymmetric compositions, biomorphic forms, strong colours, and small patterns.
The new style reached Poland shortly before the advent of the political “thaw” of 1956. The Industrial Design Institute in Warsaw, founded by Wanda Telakowska, played an instrumental role in promoting the ideas of “modernity” and “good design”. But – as Barbara Banaś explains – the output of Polish porcelain works seems equally interesting and attractive. It also provides valuable insights into the period’s lifestyle and tastes evolving towards modernity despite technological, political and economic constraints of the life under Communism. The Polish New Look was expressed first of all in specific decorations applied to relatively simple forms: the artists successfully dealt with various limitations to produce original and attractive effects. The fashionable abstract patterns were fondly referred to as ‘picassos’ after the century’s most famous modern painter.
The exhibition
The exhibition will feature over 200 objects, including the famous “Dorota” coffee service designed by Lubomir Tomaszewski and the popular tableware sets “Iza” (Chodzież), “Julia” (Wałbrzych), and “Kajtek” (“Porcelit” factory in Pruszków). The exquisite porcelain human and animal figurines designed under the auspices of the IWP with the aim of replacing despised kitschy bibelots in Polish homes will take pride of place. Their simplified, modern forms were lively and stylish. They brilliantly captured movement and the subject’s characteristic features. Another fashionable product if the period were decorative plates intended as affordable but colourful and fashionable substitutes of painted pictures.