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Erwann Gauthier Wins Warsaw's 'We Want Jazz' Poster Competition for Miles Davis Centenary
French artist Erwann Gauthier has won first prize in the 8th We Want Jazz international poster competition in Warsaw, whose 2026 theme, Miles100, marked the centenary of Miles Davis. Artists from 75 countries submitted nearly 1,000 posters.
Paris-based artist Erwann Gauthier has won first prize in the 8th We Want Jazz international poster competition in Warsaw. The 2026 edition, titled Miles100, was dedicated to the centenary of Miles Davis, who was born in 1926.
The competition's organizers say artists from 75 countries submitted nearly 1,000 posters. A preliminary selection chose 100 of them to compete for the prizes, honorable mentions and places in the final exhibition, which opened on Oct. 20 at PROM Kultury Saska Kępa in Warsaw.
Second prize went to Anett Sz. Eszteró of Hungary and third prize to Robert Myśliwski of Poland. Honorable mentions went to Lex Drewinski, Michał Kliś and Adam Nieuważny of Poland, Francesco Gamberoni of Italy, Vincent Goh of Malaysia, Mikhail Lychkovskiy and Jouri Toreev of Belarus, Alexey Lysogorov of Kyrgyzstan, Ildiko Nova and Robert Young of Canada, Nina Vahedi of Iran and Daniel Warner of the United States, according to the competition's website.
Gauthier, who was born in Madagascar, told UK Jazz News on Oct. 26 that he is "a die-hard fan of Miles Davis," drawn to "the deeply immersive sound of the early part of his career and the almost animalistic passion of the later period, particularly alongside Kenny Garrett." He said his poster tries to represent improvisation, the essential concept of jazz, and that its composition echoes the structures of Davis's music, "its rhythms, its tensions, its silences and its open spaces." He described the design as partly improvised while listening to Davis.
UK Jazz News reports that Gauthier created La Couleur du Jazz, a traveling exhibition of jazz portraits shown at festivals including Montreux Jazz Festival and Jazz à Vienne, and recently published a book, Miles Davis, la nuit aussi est un soleil, with Éditions L'Harmattan in Paris.
We Want Jazz is produced by the EUROJAZZ Foundation for the Popularization of Jazz Music for the Polish online station RadioJAZZ.FM. It started in 2019 and builds on Poland's strong tradition of jazz poster design. Four of the eight first-prize winners to date have been Polish. Earlier themes included Polish Jazz! Yes!, Jazz Not War!, All That Jazz!, Komeda 55 and In Jazz We Hope, and the 2025 prize went to Darko Karać of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Miles Davis centenary has been a running theme across the jazz world this year, alongside the John Coltrane centennial, with tributes, reissues and tours marking both anniversaries.