The Conquest of Space: Space Race Posters - Tenth Pavilion, Warsaw Citadel

Posters, oil paintings and medals from the collections of the Museum of Independence (Muzeum Niepodległości) on the space race and on Poles’ flights into space, from a 1957 poster to the poster of the Polish Ignis mission from 2025. The exhibition runs 22 May 2026 - 30 November 2026 in the Poster Gallery (Galeria Plakatu) at the Museum of the Tenth Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel.

The Museum of the Tenth Pavilion on the exhibition (our translation):

The 1950s and 1960s were a time when the rivalry for outer space reached far beyond science - it was an expression of ambition, prestige and technological superiority. The space race between the world powers fired the imagination, and astronauts became the heroes of their eras, symbolising courage and the pushing of the limits of what is possible.

In the Poster Gallery of the Museum of the Tenth Pavilion we will present objects showing the successive stages of this extraordinary journey - from the first attempts to reach for the stars to a moment of special significance for Poland: the flight of the first Pole into space. It is a story told through posters, graphic art and visual narratives that accompanied one of the most dynamic periods of the last century.

The exhibition lets us look at the dreams of space from a different perspective - through the prism of art, which responded to great events and helped shape their image in the collective consciousness.

What to expect

This is an exhibition of posters, not of technology: there are no rockets, spacesuits or instruments in it. The list of objects in the catalogue names 29 items, all from the collections of the Museum of Independence: posters, two oil paintings, a plaque and two medals commemorating the flight of the first Pole into space.

The exhibition catalogue says that almost all the space-themed works in the museum’s collection were instruments of propaganda, in which the conquest of space was meant to prove the superiority of the socialist system. So look at the posters as political messages too, not only as graphic design.

Objects worth looking out for (descriptions according to the museum’s catalogue):

• Tadeusz Jodłowski, “40 lat władzy radzieckiej” (40 Years of Soviet Power), 1957 - the red ball of Sputnik next to the hammer and sickle; according to the catalogue, the poster stresses that it was the USSR that first opened the way into space for humanity.
• Wojciech Zamecznik, “Radziecka rakieta księżycowa” (The Soviet Moon Rocket), 1959 - a photomontage with a photograph of the Moon on a black background, stressing the Soviet achievement.
• Andrzej Pągowski, “Pierwszy Polak w kosmosie” (The First Pole in Space), 1978 - one of two 1978 posters by Pągowski in the exhibition; the other is a portrait of the commander of the Soyuz 30 spacecraft, Pyotr Klimuk. The catalogue quotes the artist’s recollection: he also made a poster with Zenon Jankowski, which was pulped after Hermaszewski landed.
• Borys Okorokow, “Radziecko-polska załoga” (The Soviet-Polish Crew), 1980 - an oil painting of Pyotr Klimuk and Mirosław Hermaszewski in a brotherly embrace. The catalogue points out that instead of the black void familiar from cosmonaut posters, they are surrounded by a bright sky.
• Andrzej Pągowski, “Ignis. Pierwsza polska misja na Międzynarodową Stację Kosmiczną” (Ignis: The First Polish Mission to the International Space Station), 2025 - an art print. The museum’s photo report from the opening mentions the Ignis mission poster that flew into orbit with Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski.

At the opening, the exhibition was presented by its curator, Marta Brodala, and the special guest was Andrzej Pągowski. On 2 July the curator gave a tour of the exhibition; there was also a screening of the documentary “Pierwszy Polak w kosmosie” (The First Pole in Space) about Mirosław Hermaszewski and a meeting with its makers. The film was directed by Małgorzata Karolina Piekarska, head of the Collections Department of the Museum of Independence. The branch’s October programme announces no event connected with this exhibition.

The exhibition is accompanied by the catalogue “Na podbój kosmosu” (The Conquest of Space), published by Wydawnictwo Muzeum Niepodległości (ISBN 978-83-68378-43-6, print run of 200 copies). Its texts were written by Marta Brodala, the museum’s acting director Katarzyna Legawiec and Małgorzata Karolina Piekarska; one of them is about space in Cold War cinema and television. The museum makes the catalogue available as a PDF file (in Polish); on 7 October 2026 it was not in the museum’s online bookshop.

Context

The space race was the competition between the United States and the USSR in space exploration, roughly from 1957 to 1975. Mirosław Hermaszewski was the first Pole in space: from 27 June to 5 July 1978 he flew with Pyotr Klimuk aboard Soyuz 30. Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski, the second Pole in space, flew on the Axiom 4 mission, launched on 25 June 2025; his part in it included the experiments of the Polish technology and science mission Ignis.

The Poster Gallery is in the building of the Museum of the Tenth Pavilion, a branch of the Museum of Independence. The catalogue lists its earlier exhibitions since 2022, among them “Wakacje w PRL. Plakaty ze zbiorów Muzeum Niepodległości” (Holidays in the Polish People’s Republic: Posters from the Collections of the Museum of Independence) and “Zima w plakacie” (Winter in Posters). The previous exhibition in this gallery was “Studenckie czasy” (Student Days).

Tickets and time

• Where: the Poster Gallery in the Museum of the Tenth Pavilion building at ul. Skazańców 25, on the grounds of the Warsaw Citadel. Directions are on the museum profile.
• Until when: the exhibition runs 22 May 2026 - 30 November 2026.
• Ticket: the museum lists no separate ticket for this exhibition. Its price list covers a single entry to the museum or a branch: standard ticket 20 PLN (about 5 EUR), reduced 10 PLN (about 2 EUR). Tickets are sold through the Museum of Independence ticketing system.
• Free day: free admission on Thursdays, with a free ticket. The museum gives this rule for the whole branch and names no exceptions for temporary exhibitions.
• Hours: the gallery keeps the branch’s hours: Tue-Sun: 10:00-17:00, Mon: closed.
• How long: plan on about half an hour for the exhibition itself. It is a single gallery with 29 objects; the museum does not give a visiting time, so this is an estimate, not the museum’s figure. The same ticket admits you to the Tenth Pavilion, so the exhibition is best combined with a visit to the permanent exhibition.
• Before your visit: if you want to know more about the poster artists, look through the PDF catalogue beforehand: it describes the works in the exhibition and gives the full list of objects.
• Who it’s for: people interested in Polish poster art, the propaganda of the Polish People’s Republic and the Cold War, and the history of Poles’ flights into space.
• Who can skip it: anyone looking for equipment and memorabilia from space flights, because the exhibition shows posters, paintings, a plaque and medals. Also anyone who comes to the Tenth Pavilion for the history of the former investigative prison for political prisoners: this exhibition is about propaganda and graphic design.

Updates

• 2026-10-02 - the museum published the exhibition catalogue (source: catalogue announcement, in Polish).

See also

• Museum of the Tenth Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel - a permanent exhibition in the former prison interiors, devoted mainly to the prisoners of the Tenth Pavilion, and the gallery of paintings by Aleksander Sochaczewski: 118 paintings and sketches on the fate of convicts in Siberia.
• Bogusław Lustyk. The Memory of the Uprising - an exhibition in the Brama Bielańska Gallery, in the same branch, on until 25 October 2026.

Museum profile: Museum of the Tenth Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel.