Thursday, February 18, 2016

Szukalski: Limited Wallwork Editions

Szukalski:
Limited Wallwork Editions
in Bronze and Paper

Stanislav Szukalski came to the United States from Poland and lived in Chicago when he was in his teens. He became a member of the Chicago renaissance along with luminaries Ben Hecht, Carl Sandburg and Clarence Darrow.

In the 1930's, as a celebrated prodigal son to be given his own museum by the Polish government, Szukalski returned to Poland with all his belongings, but his work was cut short by the Siege of Warsaw in 1939. He managed to escape to America to live in California with his wife, Joan Donovan, but his entire life's work was lost, either bombed or stolen during the War. Now living in total obscurity, he spent the rest of his life obsessively writing and creating art meant to prove a theory that all human culture derived from a single origin on Easter Island after the biblical Deluge of Noah.

In 1971 his work and existence were rediscovered by Glenn Bray, who became his patron and who later issued two other publications, Troughful of Pearls (Bray/Zwalve, 1980) and Inner Portraits (Bray/Zwalve, 1982). Last Gasp in San Francisco later published three further books about the artist. Szukalski died in Burbank, California on May 19th, 1987. A year later his and his wife's ashes were scattered at Rano Raraku, the sculptors' quarry on Easter Island by his close friends, some of them fellow artists, Glenn Bray and Lena Zwalve, Robert and Suzanne Williams, and Rick Griffin and Camille Houston.

A documentary film about the life and work of Szukalski is currently in production.

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