The Polish posters of Greenpoint

In the 1980s, Brian and Teresa McMahon were immersed in the Polish community of Greenpoint, a neighborhood on the north side of Brooklyn, and ran a gallery there that highlighted Polish artists. During that time, they amassed a substantial collection of posters— some that they’ve never actually seen until recently. 

The Polish posters of Greenpoint

At the urging of and with help from their children, the family (who moved to Minnesota in 1990) have carefully unrolled their extensive collection of now vintage posters and are putting them up for public viewing. Their daughter Mariah McMahon, a biologist by day, has painstakingly framed the posters, including new additions like works by Minnesota-based Polish-American artist Piotr Szyhalski. 

“It’s about a community that was disenfranchised and had to resort to art to maintain a sense of community, in spite of the complete collapse of the government infrastructure,” Brian McMahon says about much of the work in the show. “This was their way of communicating with each other, and a lot of the messages were very, very, coded.”

Brian McMahon’s entry point into Polish culture happened when he married Polish-born Teresa McMahon, who had come to New York in 1974. Teresa would be an integral part of Brian’s architectural design-build business, running the construction site and leading the mostly Polish-speaking construction crew. Together, they fixed up a fire-damaged row house on Clifford Place, and installed a public art gallery there. 

For their first exhibition at their Greenpoint gallery, they showcased Polish artist Andrzej Czeczot, and it ended up being a hit. They’d go on to show work by other Polish artists— among them Wiktor Sadowski, who would later design a theatrical poster for “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” by Minnesota’s Theatre de la Jeune Lune in 1995, which is also in the show.

The McMahon’s collection includes about 400 posters, though they won’t all be on view this month. The posters also won’t be for sale. McMahon says he’s not sure what he wants to do with the work, but he wants to keep it all together, for now. 

In the airy gallery space with large windows and criss-cross trestles, you’ll see numerous theatrical posters, posters for art exhibitions, and more. Many of the posters have subtle political messages, and some have overt messages, like one poster by Jan Sawka paid for by the American AFL-CIO union. The poster features the word “Solidarity,” a tagline for anti-martial law organizing in Poland. The exhibit also will feature McMahon’s footage of their Greenpoint neighborhood from the 1980s, and one column covered in xeroxed posters, made to look like one of the kiosks in the old Brooklyn neighborhood. 

The Polish poster exhibition opens Saturday, June 1 at 12:00 p.m., with a reception at 4 p.m., beginning with a brief program. The opening event will also have live music. The exhibit runs through June, with gallery hours 10 a.m. through 5 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays (free). More information here. 

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