In celebration of the December 2018 USA film debut of Struggle, the highly anticipated documentary about Stanislav Szukalski’s life and work, we are very pleased to present new limited print editions based on the artist’s sublime original conte crayon drawings c.1917 – 1958. This online exhibition includes eight limited print editions only available through Varnish Fine Art in partnership with Archives Szukalski.
Szukalski created a mythology entirely of his own in his drawings and paintings, as well as an extensive manuscript. After his return to the United States, a group of artists and art lovers gathered around Szukalski, among them George DiCaprio and his son Leonardo, who jointly produced the documentary Struggle showing on Tuesday December 11, 2018 at the LA County Museum of Art. The interviews and archive footage tell the extraordinary life story of a man who seemed to have been born for great things, but who lost virtually all his artwork in the Second World War.
Stanislav Szukalski (1893-1987) was born in Poland, where he was recognized as a child prodigy. His family emigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago in 1907. Szukalski made several trips back to Poland, the first in 1911 to study at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts. He returned to Chicago in 1913 and became an important catalyst in the art community throughout the teens and twenties. Szukalski was an undeniably talented sculptor, as well as an original provocateur. On a 1936 trip to Poland, he established a museum in his name; the Nazi bombing of Warsaw destroyed it and much of his greatest work. He fled to Los Angeles in 1939 and lived out his life in obscurity while maintaining a prolific output of sculpture, medallions, and some 14,000 drawings that reinterpreted the history of the world.
