Rafał Olbinski is a Polish illustrator, painter, and educator, and is considered one of the most important figures of the Polish School of Posters. He blurred the boundaries between illustration and painting, receiving wide international acclaim for his prolific output of provocative and technically masterful paintings, illustrations, and posters. Rafal Olbinski's works are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, US; Carnegie Foundation, New York, US; National Arts Club, New York, US; Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress in Washington, US; Suntory Museum, Osaka, Japan; Poster Museum, Warsaw, Poland; and many others. Olbiński has also won numerous awards, both from the graphic arts sector, such as the French Prix Savignac, the silver and gold medals of the New York Society of Illustrators, and the Gloria Artis medal, as well as for civilian achievement, such as the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

Olbiński developed a distinctive artistic practice, less expressive, with moderate modelling and use of saturated colours. One of the most recognizable elements of his work are elements of a landscape instead of a flat background, not infrequently featuring more complex, multi-figure compositions. Without a doubt, his opera projects occupy a very prominent place in his body of work. He has collaborated with the New York City Opera, Utah Opera, and the Pacific Opera, San Francisco in the USA and with various opera houses in Poland, namely the Grand Theatre – National Opera in Warsaw, Opera Nova in Bydgoszcz, Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin, and the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic in Białystok. His poster for Macbeth is one of his most famous, historic, and controversial works. Olbiński depicts the main character’s head fused to the castle wall, incorporating it into an open spiral that also symbolically imprisons him.