Struggle: The Art of Szukalski

Stanislav Szukalski (1893-1987) was one of the great sculptors of the 20th Century. Due to geopolitical upheavals in his native land, Poland, a large proportion of his work was destroyed. Yet thanks to the efforts of a group of dedicated art patrons, art critics, and personal acquaintances, the work of Szukalski is being re-evaluated and actually shown to the public. This is the first critical view of his work published since 1923.

Szukalski “…was like a caryatid struggling to keep his ideas above the surface of the rising deluge. A flood of political disaster, a capricious tide of artistic dogma overwhelmed his creations and submerged them in a sea of dark obscurity. . . . His ideas almost died with him, nearly rode out on the horse they rode in on.

“[He] loved to sculpt hands; his ingenuity can be measured in the manifold ways that he used them to express his ideas. . . . The hands are the artist-creator passing ideas to us that glow and shimmer when compared to the dull, mordant concepts that have gained acceptance in the present day. . . . It is prankish that he is still so unknown.” —from the Foreword by Leonardo & George DiCaprio