Date of
Birth:
1889
Place of Birth: Zagreb, Croatia
Date of Death: 1963
Place of Death: Mexico
Discipline(s): Painter, Muralist
Painter Maximilian Vanka was celebrated as the finest Yugoslavian portraitist in the 1920's and 1930's.
He exhibited throughout Europe, receiving such honors as the 'Palme Academique' of the French Legion of Honor, before moving to the United States in 1934.
Buckingham Barn
Although his first New York shows were not well received, Vanka gained
American recognition in 1937, when he was commissioned to paint two sets
of eleven murals for the St. Nicholas Church of Millvale, Pennsylvania.
Noted
as some of the finest examples of church murals in the United States,
the strongly anti-war images depict not only traditional Catholic scenes
and symbols, but also scenes showing the lives and spirituality of the
Croatian immigrant community in the small mining town.
After completing the second set of murals in 1941, Vanka moved to Rushland,
Bucks County, with his family. There he continued to work, exhibiting
only rarely, and teaching Art Appreciation at the National Agricultural
College outside of Doylestown.
|
IT WAS SAID ... "I
painted so that Divinity in becoming human,
would make humanity divine." |
He established the art department at Delaware Valley College of Science and Agriculture in New Britain, Pennsylvania. After his death in 1963, a bird sanctuary was established in his honor at the Washington Crossing Nature Education Center.
