Mlodozenic was one of the many famous Polish poster designers; his work simply couldn’t have come from anywhere else. He studied in Henryk Tomaszewski’s department of graphic arts and posters at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (1948–55). He created drawings, book and publication designs and illustrations. His colleague Franciszek Starowieyski said of Jan: ‘He is in the same class as Matisse; nobody else has such understanding of colour.’ He received many of the highest awards in Warsaw, Katowice, Vienna and Lahti. When Poland was placed under martial law in 1981–84, many designers stopped working for the government in protest. Jan, however, turned an innocent poster into a ‘silent’ political manifesto and everybody immediately got the meaning. The main colour used was that of the uniforms of the hated secret police. His posters tended to be abstract, yet strangely subject-related. Type was often an integral part of the image. He didn’t care about money, just about his art.