Word: stankiewicz
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Greenwich Villager who spots a discarded sewing machine, old drainpipe, truck fender or pile of angle irons these days knows just where to take it; to the cold-water flat of Sculptor-Welder Richard Stankiewicz, 34, who with little more than an acetylene torch, a welder's tools and his own vivid imagination turns junk into sculpture. Says he: "I take material that is already degenerating, flaking and rusting and then try to make something beautiful out of it. It should hit people over the head and make them ask, 'What is beauty...
...Sculptor Stankiewicz came by his love for junk naturally. He was raised in one of Detroit's toughest districts, used a foundry dump for his playground. During a World War II hitch in the U.S. Navy, he found himself whiling away time in the Aleutians by whittling caribou horn, decided to cash in his G.I. Bill on an art education. He studied with Hans Hofmann in Manhattan, polished off in Paris with Painter Fernand Lèger and Sculptor Ossip Zadkine. Back in Manhattan he set out to shape his future by reclaiming the flotsam and jetsam...
...Manhattan's Hansa Gallery on Central Park South, 22 of Stankiewicz's rusty iron weldings are on display this week in a one-man show. What they lack in elegance they often make up in wit. To the surprise of Manhattan critics, they also follow the rules of good sculpture. A case in point is Stankiewicz's The Warrior, which is armored with a hatmaker's discarded boiler, has a butane-bottle head and a boiler-plate shield. The Warrior's spindly steel rod legs, girded with buggy wheels, and its limp crest of dangling...
...prospective buyers worried about the rust. Stankiewicz declares: "That's the big thing about it, the convenience. You just leave it out in the rain and it becomes even more beautiful...
Flute music by Eleanor Clark, makeup by Richard Smithies, and startling set and lighting by Edward Stankiewicz and Howard Andrews all combine delicately and to fine effect. The costuming, too, is attractive and appropriate...