Stanisław Szukalski (psuedonym Stach z Warty)
1893 - 1987

Stanisław Szukalski was the son of a blacksmith from Warta. Like Bolesław Biegas, he was regarded a "child prodigy" who modeled in clay and sculpted in sandstone figures of people, birds and animals. In 1907, his family settled in Chicago. He attended sculpting lessons at the Art Institute every Saturday. In addition to copying antique heads, Szukalski modeled portraits from nature, figures of men and women in various stages of motion, as well as fantastic compositions. On the advice of the sculptor Tadeusz Popiel, he returned to Poland in 1909 to continue his education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. During the years 1909-1913, he studied sculpture in Konstanty Laszczka's studio with Stanisław Jackowski, Włodzimierz Konieczny, Stanisław Popławski and others. During his studies, Szukalski won numerous awards, in spite of numerous conflicts caused by his dislike of criticism of his professors and colleagues concerning his creative work.

In 1913, he again traveled to the United States, where he lived until 1932. He worked very intensively, creating busts and complex scenes in various conventions - Art Nouveau, Futurism, and Cubism. In the fall of 1923, he visited Poland for a short time (his drawings and sculptures were exhibited in Warsaw at the Society for Encouragement of the Fine Arts), and in December he set off on a journey around Europe visiting, apart from other countries, Italy and France.. From 1926 to 1928, he lived in Paris, and then from 1929 to 1936, relocated once again to the United States, settling there for good in 1939.

Szukalski, known for his scandalous artistic and social performances opposed almost all contemporary Polish art and, apart from other things, demanded closure of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. In 1929, he founded an organization called "The Haughty Heart Tribe," the members of which were mostly students who had been expelled from the Kraków academy, including Władysław Boratyński, Marian Konarski, and Stefan Żechowski. He remotely directed his "confessors" from California, sharing his theoretical deliberations with them, and sending works which shocked with fantastic and illegible ideas. Szukalski's texts were published in the propaganda magazine of the group, "Krak." The first of thirteen exhibitions organized by the group was held in Kraków in 1930 (the last one in 1936). The artist intended to set up his own school in Kraków, a so-called "Creatiworkshop" ("Twórcownia") - an idea that was never realized - as well as a "Spiritemple" ("Duchtynia"), a temple of the Polish spirit in a crypt of the Wawel Castle.

The greatest and most spectacular of Szukalski's success was his contribution to the International Exhibition of Decorative Art in Paris (1925). He displayed several bronze and stone sculptures, as well as drawings of visionary architecture in an Art Déco style in the Polish pavilion. The artist was awarded the Grand Prix for the bronzes, a Diploma of Honor for the architectural designs, and a Gold Medal for the stone sculptures.

Stanisław Szukalski's oeuvre is scarcely known, as a considerable portion was destroyed in 1939. Many of his sculptures and drawings are now known only through old photographs and descriptions.

He created Expressionistic compositions following the pattern of the sculptures of Aztecs and Mayan Indians, a culture the artist was already familiar with in 1907. The iconography of these works was complex, referring to Poland from the time of the Piast dynasty, Slavonic mythology and the cult of Piłsudski. Szukalski designed numerous monuments: of Mickiewicz for Vilna, of Piłsudski and Bolesław Chrobry (Boleslas the Brave) for Katowice. His art was received in various ways by his contemporaries: from enthusiastic reviews that claimed that the sculptor was a genius (Władysław Wankie), to moderate and unbiased analyses (Mieczysław Wallis). The artist's monographer, Lechosław Lameński commented aptly on the artist's work: "The flame of Szukalski's talent extinguished in September of 1939. All that was created later was, as a matter of fact secondary, constituting mere duplication and repetition of those ideas and concepts that came into being during the stormy period of the 1920s and 1930s. The artist was unable or reluctant to comprehend the changes in European and American art that took place after 1945. Szukalski was locked in his own world of literary vision and detached from everything that surrounded him that made him a solitary eccentric deprived of his own viewers. The artist, [...] instead of taking his rightful place on the artistic Parnassus, fell into oblivion and so did his art, very peculiar, and yet not deprived a spark of genius" (see Lameński 1987, p. 336).

-- Anna Król

Works in the collection: