Stanislav Szukalski

Stanislav Szukalski 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 and megalomaniac. 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.