OCR Text |
Show T ' Poland not many years ago lived an old blacksmith, poor in worldly poods but rich in pride of his son. Young Stanislaus Szukalski used to watch how his sire wrought in metals with that same fascination which gripped the children who looked in at the open door of Longfellow's village smithy and saw the sparks fly and heard the bellows roar. It aroused in the young Pole a desire to work, too, in molten metal. But he was not content to cast the commonplace shapes of horseshoes and spikes. Under the fire of his imagination the metal assumed as-sumed strange and beautiful forms. When it became evident to the fond father that genius was housed under his humble roof he made those tremendous sacrifices of which the poor are so often capable and sent the boy to the art school at Cracow. He early received proof that all the painful sacrifice this cost him was justified, for the talent of young Stanislaus Stanis-laus was quick to make its mark. A real reputation had been established in Poland Po-land before the father and son emigrated to America, the land of great opportunity. opportu-nity. In Chicago the father set up a blacksmith black-smith shop, that the son might be free for the pursuit of his art But times were hard and the two were forced to struggle to exist on a pittance. Many a day they went hungry. Stanislaus attended at-tended the Art Institute, not for the sake of the instruction but because it gave him an opportunity to work in expensive ex-pensive materials which he himself could pot possibly afford. Even so, he was greatly handicapped. It is at this point that the hand of Death writes some of the story. The self-sacrificing old father, coming home from work, was killed in a street car accident. ac-cident. Stanislaus found the body in the ' morgue. Without show of emotion, his Stolid Slavic features masking the grief he must have felt, he identified the corpse and asked the authorities for a permit to keep it. When they asked him for what reason he replied without hesi-. tatlon: "I want to dissect it. I want to learn anatomy. I am too poor to buy the bodies of other men. My father would wish It if he could speak," And to judge from the parent's career of sacrifice, it seems certain that the son spoke the truth. At any rate, the strange request was granted and by dissecting dis-secting the body of his own father young Szukalski is said to have acquired that knowledge of the structure of the human body which reveals itself even in his most grotesque work. Wild and weird, distorted and fanciful as are many of his pieces of sculpture, the anatomists can have no quarrel with their essentials. Bone and ainew, vein and cord, are carved with masterful skill. It was a gruesome chapter, but stories sto-ries of genius and necessity have contained con-tained them before. And some of the enthusiastic admirers of Szukalski's work think that no lifeless piece of flesh ever served more useful purpose than Szukalski's statue of "Menelaus' which seems to suggest in its every line that it had its inspiration inspira-tion in Death did the corpse of his father when it became be-came the inspiration for some of the sculptures he has given the world. In death the old man thus completed for his son the achievement his self-sacrifice had begun while he lived. Szukalski began to win some little fame in Chicago, but riches didn't go with it. He finally broke with the Art Institute entirely, after a spectacular display of temperament. The young sculptor takes great pains with his modeling and after he has finished fin-ished fashioning a cast he puts much more time on it, smoothing, polishing and filling in the air holes in the piaster pias-ter An exhibition was on and the authorities au-thorities granted a room that Szukalski's work might be shown. He happened to be -In that room the day before the exhi-tion exhi-tion opened, and while tho prize award committee was examining his work. One of the members made a remark about tome of the sculptor's work, which, while complimentary, was deemed by the Pole to be stupid and an example of the art patter of the studios, which be detests. de-tests. In enraged protests against the committee's ability to judge anything, the sculptor raised a heavy stick which he carried and smashed every cast in the collection. Naturally, this did not help him much. , And his work, while considered a success suc-cess artistically, was not so financially. Chicago's artistic colony would come and gaze long at the work of the young Pole. They would raise their lofty brows over it and groan with ecstatic admiration. They would say nothing like it ever had been seen before, and they would be right. All this, while encouraging, en-couraging, was not remunerative. It would not pay board bills and room rent or buy suits of clothes. But many of the people who could buy oil millionaires from Oklahoma and the like, those wealthy persons who have been the livelihood of man.v a struggling sculptor did not like "the statues of Szukalski. Somehow they didn't seem just the things to have around the home. They were too startling, too peculiar. Scornful European critics have frequently fre-quently remarked that America's taste in sculpture has never progressed beyond be-yond the soldiers' monuments which make our Main Streets even more unat- if f tractive than they are and the cast iron animals which often rear their ugly heads on the lawns of the town's leading citizens. Whether this be an exaggeration or not, it is undo-ubtedly true that most Americans have not reached a point" where they can go into ecstacies over such bizarre conceptions as Szukalski's. When they think of statues they think of calm beauty and smooth, flowing lines like those found m the Venus de Milo. And statues not combining these qualities quali-ties are hardly tho sort they want to spend their money for and have continually contin-ually staring them in the face. Smooth, flowing lines and calm beauty were impressions Szukalski's work did not convey. His sculptures were disturbing. dis-turbing. They carried the thought of Death, did some of them, Death which had inspired them. Perhaps some of the potential buyers had heard how the sculptor learned anatomy and could not gaze without a shudder on the stark, grim figures of Menelaus, the iolinist and other creatures of the Pole's imagination. imagi-nation. "Why. th-e things would frighten the children out of their wits," is reported to have been the comment of one Western West-ern millionaire who was being urged to buy some of Szukalski's works for a great public art gallery he was about to endow. And some of those who would have bought wei r- refused the opportunity, for the sculptor entertained the most unusual un-usual theory that real works of art should not go into private collections, but Above Stanis-laus Stanis-laus Szukalski, the sculptor who found the inspiration for many of his artistic efforts in his father's dead body; and below be-low the former Miss Helen Walker, the Chic-o heiress whom he has just married should be owned by cities. So very often he would not sell, no matter how high the price offered. He was able to maintain main-tain himself only through the charity of friends an 1 admirers, who provided him with studio and materials. He managed to live on small quantities of cheap food. He unproved conditions when he started start-ed an art school in order to prove his theory of instruction, which is that sculptors sculp-tors should not work from models. They should observe, he thinks, and then create cre-ate from imagination. This avoids the distraction of models, who sometimes can be quite distracting. Some of the young people of the type that is known as the younger intelli-' gentsijj flocked to his school and studied the strange precepts of the Polish sculptor. sculp-tor. Among them was Miss Helen Walker, lhr daughter of Dr. Samuel T. Walker, a prominent and wealthy physician physi-cian of Chicago. She had had no previous pre-vious instruction, but under the tutelage and stimulation of Szukalski she soon produced enough creditable work to justify jus-tify an exhibition which won her recognition. rec-ognition. The unearthly figures hewn out by Szukalski inspired her with admiration, not repulsion. She believed she understood under-stood the idea expressed by them. And thus a bond of mutual interest grew between teacher and pupil. Miss Walker's Walk-er's interest which first had been only impersonal in the Pole's genius 9f r.p ' '- began to extend further than that. Szukalski went to New York, where Mrs. Harry Payne Whitnej, society leader and sculptress of acknowledged ability, became interested in his work. She arranged two exhibitions for him, but most of those who came were astounded as-tounded by the fantastic and horrible element in the statuary. No buyers were willing to pay the price set upon the work and the sculptor would accept no. private commissions. It is said that at times the sculptor was near starvation, but he maintained the courage of his convictions. Correspondence had continued between him and Miss Walker. The affection which had begun between them ripened into love in spite of the barriers that lie between the son of a Polish blacksmith ind a1 rich society girl. He proposed by mail and she wired back the answer "Yes." , Szukalski returned to Chicago for the marriage and the aristocratic Walker family received him warmly in their home in the exclusive neighborhood known as the "Gold Coast." He appeared ap-peared In flowing locks, tam-o'-shanter; haggy trousers and all. But Dr. Walker pro laini d his approval of the match. "It appears that the young man has remarkable ability," he said. "I believe he will make his mark in the artistic world." The day for the wedding was set. Some were of the opinion that it would never take place and recalled the fact that Miss Walker was Mary Landon Baker's only attendant when she left Al-lister Al-lister McCormick waiting at the church. It was thought Miss Baker's hesitancy might prove contagious, but nothing like that happened. After the marriage it looked for a time as if the sculptor might not re- main wedded to his art. For announced that he wjs going to take a l))j bride and live on u farm nd tbC he was going to raise pigs1 There llttST a whole lot ir.oro money in that this D Ve, art, he had decided. M att But tins eras- pl.-.n '"as abar.doatl Rj , and just Lh' other Jay saw the fcn settled in a tiny top-floor flat on the rety sr skirts of New orks Greenwich Pi "Here we are," cried the young Pj leuty "ready to work tog I r and accotfpaj fa ' Helen is a delightful artist we .ire very much interested in our & P q She is my perpetual inspiration." . F And what the young wife had t?M,pfl0?. "Sin . n and I mci here in P To th York at an art clmol my "ork W m oved I i I m work in '-P Tfe , and owe what praise I got t' '" BHrddJ band. He is an exponent of tt K j , school of art and sculpture. 11 u Pettish lead a Bohemian W ( to be lionized into society. Herc j, Br quiet studio, which I think is Weal. f elf in work. ttjjiju And 15 dr v'...-ther tho Death-inspired art , P pj won love for the sculptor " E1 a t 1; bring him and his bride fan Ht fortune. p BJ ft, si, For an heiress to leave the . 9f i.rv of fa hionable life as t he ,j, PBfe, ia 'I'- V.r.lker has do..e and P. garret ti lio oi the , , young sculptor supplies a- ' ' j mm, . situation as you often find in llBJof romantic n..el- or movie gLi she and her husband make jB bheir love match under '"- conditions j wl1 iVf I1 it A, lown m history, even f.W d, don't succeed in winn nS -J C'-tlJir |