Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
1919-1993
Edward Marecak was an American painter who was born in 1919. Growing up in the farming community of Brunswick, Ohio, he showed early artistic promise, hired by the National Youth Administration to document historic barns. In 1946, Marecak came to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center for a year and after a semester interlude at Cranbrook returned to study lithography with Lawrence Barrett. There he also met his future wife and sometime collaborator, ceramicist Theresa Madonna Fortin. Given the opportunity to teach a summer course at the University of Colorado, he decided to obtain a teaching certificate at the University of Denver and subsequently embarked on his 25-year career in the Denver Public School system. Rather than pursue fame, Edward Marecak directed his zeal toward fostering younger generations in the principles of art as well as his simple philosophies. Moreover, his teaching salary allowed him to ply his prodigious talent at whatever he pleased, instead of bending to the dictates of trends and sales. Having inherited his faith in education from his Slovakian immigrant parents, Marecak could add the shaping of lives to his mastery of art forms, including lithographs, monoprints, drawings, hooked rugs, ceramics, paintings, wood sculptures, stained-glass windows and jewelry. While exhibiting in his lifetime, he was, in his wife’s words, “his own greatest collector”, but shows and his popularity at the Kirkland Museum have positioned Marecak posthumously among Colorado’s pre-eminent modernists. As a child, Marecak was enthralled by the Carpathian tales of magic and supernatural beings told by his grandmother. As with other artists with roots in Eastern Europe, his artistic turn to folk tradition would free him from learned practices of perspective and modeling in favor of flat patterns within patterns and brilliant, throbbing color. While others ventured further into abstraction, Marecak stylized figurative elements into crowded compositions that appeared like a mosaic or stained glass. As he matured, he could declare, “I am still very much a Byzantine designer and my joy with what color can do grows all the time”. The traceries of strong outlines and bold shapes provide compartments for vibrant colors, contrasts and rough textures that can scarcely be contained. The Kirkland Museum staged a retrospective of Edward and Donna Marecak in 2007.
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Artist: Edward Marecak
Sybil (The Prophetess), 1970s Abstract Figurative Oil Painting, Pink Blue Red
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Semi-Abstract figurative oil on burlap painting titled 'Sybil (The Prophetess)' by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) painted in 1976. Signed and dated by the artist in the lower right corne...
Category
1970s American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Burlap, Oil
Autumn Harvest, Original Semi-Abstract Landscape and Figurative Oil Painting
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Original framed oil painting on burlap by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled "Autumn Harvest" from 1987. Signed and dated by the artist in the lower right corner. Presented in a custom framed, outer dimensions measure 20 x 29 x 1 ⅜ inches. Image size is 19 x 28 inches.
Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Edward Marecak
Painting is clean and in good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report.
Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote.
About the artist:
Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of “Peter and the Wolf,” awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne-inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute.
Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world’s most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II.
Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson’s specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49.
At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church.
In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate
from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High City. For the next twenty-five years he taught art at Skinner, Grove, East, George Washington and Morey Junior High Schools.
Prior to coming to Colorado, Marecak did watercolors resembling those of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Charles Burchfield. However, once in Colorado Springs he decided to destroy much of his earlier oeuvre, embarking on a totally new direction unlike anything he had previously done. Initially, in the 1940s, he was influenced by surrealist imagery and Paul Klee and in the West by Indian petroglyphs and Kachinas. His first one-person show at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs in 1949 featured paintings and lithographs rendered in the style of Magic Realism and referential abstraction. The pieces, including an oil Witch with Pink Dish...
Category
1980s American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Winter Witches in an Upside World Interfering with Each Other, Semi-Abstract Oil
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Oil painting on burlap by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled "Winter Witches in an Upside World Interfering with Each Other" from 1990. Titled and dated by the artist on verso. Painted in shades of black, gray, red, purple, and green. Presented in the original artist frame, outer dimensions measure 44 ⅛ x 44 ⅛ x 1 ⅜ inches. Image size is 43 x 43 inches.
About the artist:
Edward Marecak
Born Ohio 1919
Died Colorado 1993
Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of “Peter and the Wolf,” awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne-inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute.
Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world’s most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II.
Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson’s specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49.
At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church.
In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate
from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High City. For the next twenty-five years he taught art at Skinner, Grove, East, George Washington and Morey Junior High Schools.
Prior to coming to Colorado, Marecak did watercolors resembling those of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Charles Burchfield. However, once in Colorado Springs he decided to destroy much of his earlier oeuvre, embarking on a totally new direction unlike anything he had previously done. Initially, in the 1940s, he was influenced by surrealist imagery and Paul Klee and in the West by Indian petroglyphs and Kachinas. His first one-person show at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs in 1949 featured paintings and lithographs rendered in the style of Magic Realism and referential abstraction. The pieces, including an oil Witch with Pink Dish, foreshadowed the output of his entire Colorado-based career, distinguished by a dramatic use of color, intricacy of execution and attention to detail contributing to their visual impact. He once observed, “Each time I start a new painting I always fool myself by saying this time keep it simple and not get entangled with such complex patterns, color and design; but I always find myself getting more involved with richness, color and subject matter.”
An idiosyncratic artist proficient in oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, and casein, he did not draw upon Colorado subject matter for his work, unlike many of his fellow painters in the state. Instead he used Midwest landscape imagery, bringing to life in it witches and spirits adapted from the Slovakian folk tales he heard growing up in Ohio. A number of his paintings depict winter witches derived from the Slovak custom in the Tatra Mountains of burning an effigy of the winter witch in the early spring to banish the memory of a hard winter. The folk tale element imparts a dream-like quality to many of his paintings.
A devote of Greek mythology, he placed the figures of Circe, Persephone, Sybil, Hera and others in modern settings. The goddess in Persephone Brings a Pumpkin to her Mother, attired as a Midwestern farmer’s daughter, heralds the advent of fall with the pumpkin before departing to spend the winter season in the underworld. Train to Olympus, the meeting place of the gods in ancient Greece, juxtaposes ancient mythology with modernity creating a combination of whimsy and thought-provoking consideration for the viewer. Voyage to Troy #1 alludes to the ancient city that was the site of the Trojan Wars, but has a contemporary, autobiographical component referencing the harbor of the Aleutian Islands recaptured from the Japanese during World War II. In the 1980s Marecak used the goddess Hera in his painting, Hera Contemplates Aspects of the Art Nouveau, to comment on art movements in the latter half of the twentieth century
Marecak’s love of classical music and opera, which he shared with his wife and to which he often listened while painting in his Denver basement studio, is reflected in Homage of Offenbach, an abstract work translating the composer’s musical colors into colorful palette. Pace, Pace, Mio Dio, the title of his earliest surrealist painting, is a soprano aria from Verdi’s opera...
Category
1990s Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Burlap, Oil
The Argument, 1960s Vintage Semi-Abstract Oil Painting in Reds, Pinks, and Black
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Oil on board painting by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled "The Argument" from 1968. Semi-abstract oil painting depicting two figures in colors of greens, pinks, blues, and blacks. Presented framed, outer dimensions measure 49 ½ x 33 ¼ x 1 ½ inches. Image size is 48 x 32 inches.
Painting is clean and in very good vintage condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report.
About the artist:
Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of “Peter and the Wolf,” awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne-inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute.
Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world’s most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II.
Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson’s specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49.
At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church.
In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate
from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High City. For the next twenty-five years he taught art at Skinner, Grove, East, George Washington and Morey Junior High Schools.
Prior to coming to Colorado, Marecak did watercolors resembling those of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Charles Burchfield. However, once in Colorado Springs he decided to destroy much of his earlier oeuvre, embarking on a totally new direction unlike anything he had previously done. Initially, in the 1940s, he was influenced by surrealist imagery and Paul Klee and in the West by Indian petroglyphs and Kachinas. His first one-person show at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs in 1949 featured paintings and lithographs rendered in the style of Magic Realism and referential abstraction. The pieces, including an oil Witch with Pink Dish...
Category
1960s Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Adam and Eve, 1980s Abstract Figurative Painting, Vertical Oil Painting, 30 x 48
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Oil painting on foam core titled "Adam and Eve" by Denver artist Edward Marecak (1919-1993) from 1983. Portrays two semi-abstract figures with shapes in the background, painted in colors of pink, blue, yellow, and brown. Presented in a custom wooden frame, outer dimensions measure 30 ⅞ x 48 ⅞ x 2 ⅝ inches. Image size 30 x 48 inches.
Painting is in good vintage condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report.
Provenance: Estate of Edward Marecak
About the Artist:
Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. His junior and senior high projects earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute.
Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy...
Category
1980s Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Masks, 1980s Semi-Abstract Polychromatic Oil Painting, Vibrant Multicolor
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Oil on board painting by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled "Masks" from the 1980s. Mosaic style oil painting in vibrant colors of red, blue, green, yellow, and orange. Presented in a...
Category
1980s Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
City Park, Denver, Colorado, Large Semi Abstract Colorful Oil Landscape
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Large format oil painting on canvas of City Park in Denver, Colorado by 20th century Denver modernist, Edward Marecak. Semi-abstract park scene with various types of trees, figures, ...
Category
20th Century American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Canvas
Parcheesi, Vintage Semi Abstract Oil Painting by Edward Marecak, Board Game
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
'Parcheesi', vintage 1990 semi abstract oil painting on canvas by 20th century Denver artist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993) of a stylized Parcheesi board ...
Category
1990s Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Sybils Telling Cosmic Jokes On Mankind, Framed Figurative Abstract Oil Painting
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Vintage 1960s original semi abstract oil painting, "Sybils Telling Cosmic Jokes On Mankind", by 20th century Denver modernist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993). Painted in bright colors of...
Category
1960s Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Canvas
The Four Winter Months, Semi-Abstract Figure Oil Painting, Red Black Orange Blue
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
1985 original signed oil painting titled 'The Four Winter Months' by Denver modernist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993) with four abstract/stylized figures painted with colors of red, black, green, gray, blue, and orange. Referential abstraction painted in oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, titled verso. Presented in a vintage frame, outer dimensions measure 24 ½ x 30 ½ x 1 ¼ inches. Image size is 23 ¾ x 30 inches.
Provenance: Estate of the artist, Edward Marecak
About the Artist:
Born Ohio 1919
Died Colorado 1993
Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. His junior and senior high projects earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute.
Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy...
Category
20th Century Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
The Three Fates Confused, 1970s Abstract Figural Painting, Still Life Flowers
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
The Three Fates Confused, a vintage 1970s figural abstraction oil painting by Denver modernist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993). Semi-abstract composition depic...
Category
1970s Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Liberty Rides the Goose, Semi Abstract, Lady Liberty, Yellow Red White Blue
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Original painting by 20th century Denver modernist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993). "Liberty Rides the Goose" is a semi-abstract depiction of Lady Liberty wearing Red, white and blue wi...
Category
20th Century American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
The Keepers Of The Chalice, Semi-Abstract Oil Painting, 20th Century
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Oil on panel painting by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled The Keepers of the Chalice from 1987. Presented in a custom black frame, outer dimensions measure 36 ¼ x 48 ¼ x 1 ⅛ inches....
Category
1980s Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
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Located in Surfside, FL
Raoul Middleman (born 1935 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American painter. Middleman has been a member of the Maryland Institute College of Art faculty since 1961. American University Museum at the Katzen Center has described Middleman as a "Baltimore maestro [whose] nudes are not pretty—they are sagging, dimpled, and real. His cityscapes reveal the underbelly of post-industrial rot, his narrative paintings give contemporary life to his personal obsessions. They are intelligent, messy, and utterly masterful."
From an interview with RM "I was doing abstract art. Then Roy Lichtenstein came around, and I wanted to be current. I remember Grace Hartigan said, “You’ve gotta go to New York, seize destiny by the hand.” My friend Jon Schueler took my slides up to Eleanor Ward, who had the Stable Gallery. My Pop art paintings were discovered. I moved to New York into Malcolm Morley’s old loft down on South Street. Agnes Martin was upstairs... People who interest me come from different quarters. I knew guys around Schueler, like B.H. Friedman. But I also knew the Pop world pretty well – Al Hansen, Richard Artschwager, Lichtenstein. I became friends with Raoul Hague and I rented a place in Port Jervis, New York. I started doing my first landscapes up there. I thought making landscapes was the dumbest thing you could do. You got flies, insects, cow pies, humidity. But I loved it... I went down to the meetings of the Figurative Alliance. I met my friends there — Paul Resika, Paul Georges, Rosemarie Beck...
Category
1970s American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Board
A Pair of Modern Impressionist Landscape Oil Paintings Framed Female artist NY
Located in Buffalo, NY
A Pair of Modernist Landscapes by listed female artist Margaret Munro Stratton McLennan.
Margaret was a painter working in the early 20th Century in the Syracuse area. These charmi...
Category
1920s American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Board, Oil
Original Antique American Landscape Fishing Delaware River Oil Painting Framed
Located in Buffalo, NY
A lovely scene adeptly painted by listed American artist and illustrator Jan Nosek (1876 - 1966) who was active in the late 19th and early 20th Century. This scene created in the ea...
Category
1910s American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Board, Oil
Simka Simkhovitch WPA Artist Oil Painting American Modernist Landscape w Tower
By Simka Simkhovitch
Located in Surfside, FL
Simka Simkhovitch (Russian/American 1893 - 1949)
This came with a small grouping from the artist's family, some were hand signed some were not.
Thes...
Category
1930s American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Board
New Yorker Magazine Cover Oil Painting New England Porch View Folk Art Americana
By Gretchen Dow Simpson
Located in Surfside, FL
This is a hand painted copy of the New Yorker Magazine cover image from September 25, 1978. It is not signed. I was told it is not by the artist. I am selling it as in the style of Gretchen Dow Simpson...
Category
1970s American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Illustration Board
Early 20th Century Summer Landscape, Cleveland School Artist
By George Adomeit
Located in Beachwood, OH
George Gustav Adomeit (American, 1879-1967)
Summer Landscape
Oil on canvas board
Signed lower right
13 x 14.25 inches
18.25 x 19.5 inches, framed
A major painter of American scene s...
Category
Early 20th Century American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
20th C. Figurative Abstract Painting Cleveland School African American Artist
By Beni E. Kosh
Located in Beachwood, OH
Beni E. Kosh/Charles Elmer Harris (American, 1917-1993)
Untitled
Oil on canvas board
Estate stamped #611 verso
24 x 18 inches
Charles Elmer Harris was born in 1917 in Cleveland, Oh...
Category
20th Century American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Boys Swimming Industrial Landscape WPA Mid 20th Century Social Realism Modernism
By Henry Ernst Schnakenberg
Located in New York, NY
Boys Swimming Industrial Landscape WPA Mid 20th Century Social Realism Modernism
Henry Schnakenberg (1982 - 1970)
Boys Swimming Industrial Landscape
11 1/2 x 15 1/2 sight
Oil on Canvas
Signed lower left
14 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches, Framed
Bio
In many cases, American artists visited the Armory Show in New York in 1913, and returned to their studios to react to or against what they saw. However, for Henry Ernest Schnakenberg it was much more life altering. Prior to visiting this important exhibition of American and European modernist art...
Category
1940s American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil, Canvas
Previously Available Items
The Winter Months, 1980s Semi-Abstract Figurative Oil Painting, Blue Black
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Semi-Abstract figurative oil on canvas painting titled "The Winter Months" by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) from 1981, signed and dated in the lower right. Featuring 3 abstract figures in front of a blue geometric background. Presented in the original artist frame measuring 35 ¼ x 35 ¼ inches. Image size measures 30 ¾ x 33 ¾ inches.
Expedited and International shipping is available - please contact us for a quote.
About the Artist:
Born Ohio 1919
Died Colorado 1993
Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. His junior and senior high projects earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute.
Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy...
Category
1980s Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
H 35.25 in W 35.25 in D 1.5 in
The Samurai, Semi-Abstract Figurative Oil Painting in Blue, Yellow, and Red
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Oil on board painting by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled "The Samurai" from 1957. Shows an abstract portrait of a samurai in a red hood and black robe. Pres...
Category
1950s Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
H 25.5 in W 18.75 in D 1.5 in
The Golden Queens, 1970s Abstract Figurative Painting Oil Painting, Yellow Gold
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
The Golden Queens is an oil painting on board by Denver artist, Edward Marecak from 1972. Two abstracted figures in a byzantine mosaic style in colors of gold, yellow, and white. Pre...
Category
1970s Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
H 19.25 in W 25 in D 1.5 in
Picnic At Mt. Olympus, Large Framed Park Landscape Oil Painting, Mythological
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Picnic at Mr. Olympus, vintage 1970s semi abstract painting by Denver modernist, Edward Marecak. Depicting a park scene with several semi cubist nude figures bathing in a fountain an...
Category
20th Century American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Board, Oil
Liberty Tries on Masks, Semi Abstract, Lady Liberty, Black Green Red Blue White
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Liberty Tries on Masks, original vintage 1970s oil painting on board by Edward Marecak, semi-abstract, stylized depiction of Lady Liberty with a red white and blue headdress and flag...
Category
20th Century Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
Edward MarecakLiberty Tries on Masks, Semi Abstract, Lady Liberty, Black Green Red Blue White, 1970s
H 40.25 in W 20.25 in D 1.25 in
The Warlord, 1990s Framed Abstract Figural Painting, Red Blue Green
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
The Warlord by 20th century Denver artist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993), vintage 1990 oil painting on canvas with an abstracted male figure wearing a crown and holding weaponry includi...
Category
20th Century Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
H 40.5 in W 30.5 in D 1.375 in
Seated Woman, Vintage 1980s Semi Abstract Painting, Pink Red White Yellow Blue
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Untitled #12 (Seated Woman) by Edward Marecak, vintage 1987 oil semi abstract portrait painting on board. Painted in colors of pink, red, white, yellow, orange, blue green and purple...
Category
20th Century American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Oil
H 41.25 in W 21.25 in D 1.5 in
'Sweethearts' - 1980s Signed Semi-Abstract Figurative Oil Painting
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
"Sweethearts" is a semi-abstract figural oil painting on canvas by artist Edward Marecak (1919-1993) from 1987. Signed and dated by the artist in the lower right, titled by the artist verso. Portraying multiple abstract figures in bright colors surrounded by geometric designs. Presented in a newly added custom frame measuring 36 ¾ x 36 ¾ inches, image size is 36 x 36 inches.
Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Edward Marecak
About the Artist:
Born Ohio 1919
Died Colorado 1993
Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of "Peter and the Wolf," awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne-inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute.
Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world’s most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II.
Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson’s specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49.
At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church.
In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High City. For the next twenty-five years he taught art at Skinner, Grove, East, George Washington and Morey Junior High Schools.
Prior to coming to Colorado, Marecak did watercolors resembling those of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Charles Burchfield. However, once in Colorado Springs he decided to destroy much of his earlier ouevre, embarking on a totally new direction unlike anything he had previously done. Initially, in the 1940s he was influenced by surrealist imagery and Paul Klee, and in the West by Indian petroglyphs and Kachinas. His first one-person show at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs in 1949 featured paintings and lithographs rendered in the style of Magic Realism and referential abstraction. The pieces, including an oil Witch with Pink Dish, foreshadowed the output of his entire Colorado-based career, distinguished by a dramatic use of color, intricacy of execution and attention to detail contributing to their visual impact. He once observed, "Each time I start a new painting I always fool myself by saying this time keep it simple and not get entangled with such complex patterns, color and design; but I always find myself getting more involved with richness, color and subject matter."
An idiosyncratic artist proficient in oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache and casein, he did not draw upon Colorado subject matter for his work, unlike many of his fellow painters in the state. Instead he used Midwest landscape imagery, bringing to life in it witches and spirits adapted from the Slovakian folk tales he heard growing up in Ohio. A number of his paintings depict winter witches derived from the Slovak custom in the Tatra Mountains of burning an effigy of the winter witch in the early spring to banish the memory of a hard winter. The folk tale element imparts a dream-like quality to many of his paintings.
A devote of Greek mythology, he placed the figures of Circe, Persephone, Sybil, Hera and others in modern settings. The goddess in Persephone Brings a Pumpkin to her Mother, attired as a Midwestern farmer’s daughter, heralds the advent of fall with the pumpkin before departing to spend the winter season in the underworld. Train to Olympus, the meeting place of the gods in ancient Greece, juxtaposes ancient mythology with modernity creating a combination of whimsy and thought-provoking consideration for the viewer. Voyage to Troy #1 alludes to the ancient city that was the site of the Trojan Wars, but has a contemporary, autobiographical component referencing the harbor of the Aleutian Islands recaptured from the Japanese during World War II. In the 1980s Marecak used the goddess Hera in his painting, Hera Contemplates Aspects of the Art Nouveau, to comment on art movements in the latter half of the twentieth century
Marecak’s love of classical music and opera, which he shared with his wife and to which he often listened while painting in his Denver basement studio, is reflected in Homage of Offenbach, an abstract work translating the composer’s musical colors into colorful palette. Pace, Pace, Mio Dio, the title of his earliest surrealist painting, is a soprano aria from Verdi’s opera...
Category
1980s Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
H 36 in W 36 in D 0.75 in
The Potters, 1960s Mid Century Semi Abstract Figurative Framed Oil Painting
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
The Potters, vintage 1960s semi-abstract oil painting of two female figures with their pottery by Denver modernist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993). Painted in oil paint on canvas, estate...
Category
1960s Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
H 36.5 in W 48.5 in D 1.75 in
Witch with Still Life, Abstract, Cubist Painting, Red, Blue Black, Orange, Green
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Witch with Still Life, vintage oil painting with a semi-abstract, cubist, female figure with an interior still life by Denver artist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993), mid-century modern s...
Category
1960s Abstract Geometric Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Burlap, Oil
H 36.75 in W 36.5 in D 1.25 in
The Return Of Ulysses, 1960s Mid Century Modern Abstract Figural Cubist Painting
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
The Return Of Ulysses, vintage 1960 oil painting, semi-abstract with cubist figures including a male nude, by Edward Marecak (1919-1993). Painted in colors of red, blue, golden yell...
Category
1960s American Modern Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Burlap, Oil
Edward MarecakThe Return Of Ulysses, 1960s Mid Century Modern Abstract Figural Cubist Painting, 1960
H 36.5 in W 48.75 in D 1.75 in
Zeus and Hera, 1967 Framed Semi-Abstract Figural Painting, Mid Century Modern
By Edward Marecak
Located in Denver, CO
Zeus and Hera, abstract realism painting with two nude figures set in a stylized interior by 20th century Denver modernist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993). Painted in colors of orange, b...
Category
1960s Abstract Edward Marecak Figurative Paintings
Materials
Burlap, Oil
H 34.5 in W 46.5 in D 1.75 in
Edward Marecak figurative paintings for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Edward Marecak figurative paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of figurative paintings to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of orange and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Edward Marecak in oil paint, paint, fabric and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the abstract style. Not every interior allows for large Edward Marecak figurative paintings, so small editions measuring 19 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Donald Stacy, Simka Simkhovitch, and Byron Browne. Edward Marecak figurative paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $2,200 and tops out at $12,750, while the average work can sell for $5,225.