Two books on Jacques Hnizdovsky are available
from The Ukrainian Museum in New York.
http://www.ukrainianmuseum.org/gift.html
To purchase works by Jacques Hnizdovsky,
please contact Stephanie Hnizdovsky
at http://www.hnizdovsky.com/
[email protected]
To order the short film “Sheep in Wood” by Slavko Nowytski:
Equinox Pictures Intl.,
289 Fifth St. E., Suite 609,
Saint Paul, MN 55101 USA
(202) 277-7636
[email protected]
An Extraordinary Richness:
the Works of Jacques Hnizdovsky
in Private Collections in Winnipeg
February 5 – March 5, 2006
Presented by the University of Manitoba Libraries Department
of Archives & Special Collections and Elizabeth Dafoe Library.
Idea – Sigrid Johnson, Head, Icelandic Collection
Curator – Orysia Tracz, Collections Management
Design – Kristjana Wood, Icelandic Collection
Exhibition Committee:
Dr. Shelley Sweeney, Head, Archives & Special Collections
Nicole Michaud-Oystryk, Head, Elizabeth Dafoe Library
James Kominowsky, Slavic Librarian and Archivist
Vladimira Zvonik, Slavic Collection and Archives & Special Collections
Brian Hubner, Acting Head, Archives & Special Collections
Carolynne Presser, Director of Libraries
Opening of exhibition courtesy of the Anne Smigel Research Endowment Fund
Thank you to all participating collectors.
If you’re wondering just what a
woodcut is, try to see the awardwinning short film “Sheep in Wood”
by multi-award winning filmmaker
Slavko Nowytski. In it, you will
see the artist creating and making a
woodcut of “Two Rams,” a favorite
subject of Hnizdovsky’s.
In fact, his subject matter was
nature – in its simplicity: trees,
with leaves and leafless; rams
and sheep of all shapes and sizes;
birds and other animals, exotic
and domestic; fruits, vegetables,
flowers and plants. Some of his
works showed his subtle sense of
humor: the two separate woodcuts
of the front and back of a zebra, the
frontal view of a goose, his series
of tropical birds, and “Andy,” an
orangutan from the Bronx Zoo, for
example.
His personal stand for
conservation is his work entitled
“Eagle,” showing a mother eagle
fiercely guarding three eggs in her
nest. His elegant works are too
numerous to list, but his “Young
Willow,” “White Pine,” “Cock,”
“Fern,” and “Wheatfield” are
among my favorites. Hnizdovsky
went through a period in 1972
when he commented on the
isolation and crush of a big city
with works such as “Telephone
Booths” and “7:45 A.M.”
And I cannot forget his
vegetables, such as the “Braided
Onions” and the various cabbages.
I still imagine the Hnizdovskys in
the kitchen, with Mrs. Hnizdovsky
unable to prepare a meal without
Mr. Hnizdovsky grabbing the
cabbage or onion for a sketch.
His works were commissioned
by organizations such as the
Association of American Artists,
Friends of the Davison Art Centre,
Wesleyan University, and Friends
of Central Park. Hnizdovsky’s
art is in the permanent collections
of museums and galleries such as
the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Museum of Fine Arts of Boston,
Minneapolis Institute of Art, the
Library of Congress and the White
House. You can read about him,
including the autobiographical
“Reflections of the Artist” in the
book “Hnizdovsky Woodcuts
1944-1976” by Abe M. Tahir
Jr., published by Pelican in
1976. [N.B. The second edition
appeared as : Jacques Hnizdovsky:
Woodcuts and Etchings, 1944-1985
(Gretna, La.: Pelican, 1987]
I saw Mr. Hnizdovsky and his
delightful wife Stephanie last
August. When I asked about his
problem with his eye, he told me
that he could not see out of it any
more. But when he was in the
hospital, he met a boy of 17 who
had already lost his sight. Mr.
Hnizdovsky said he felt so sad
for him, because his life was just
beginning. The artist had come
toterms with his own partial loss
of sight, and said he felt good
that at least he had accomplished
something during his life. That
he did.
Even now, when I see certain
trees or plants or flowers or
vegetables, or even horned animals
in the zoo, I automatically think
of them in his interpretation. He
showed us the beauty of nature
in a special way, and we are so
fortunate that he did.
[Published in The Ukrainian
Weekly, March 30, 1986]
IN MEMORIAM: HNIZDOVSKY, A MASTER WHO
SHOWED US NATURE’S BEAUTY
Orysia Paszczak Tracz
The family of man has been
diminished by one very special
person. His death, in early
November, is a loss to the art
world, to the Ukrainian community,
and to everyone everywhere who
loved beauty. Jacques (Yakiv)
Hnizdovsky was a remarkable man.
As an artist, he was called “one
of the few contemporary masters
of the woodcut,” and “one of the
four or five best American woodcut
artists.”
Winnipeggers, Ukrainian and nonUkrainian. And he was a friend,
from their student days in Europe,
of Winnipeg editorial cartoonist Jan
Kamienski.
In the 1960s, when I was a
student, I had heard of Jacques
Hnizdovsky, but had never met him
nor seen any of his works.
Although he is renowned primarily
for his woodcuts, he was a painter,
sculptor, potter, book illustrator,
designer of book covers and
bookplates – superb in each of
these fields, as his awards and
reviews testify.
When Mr. Hnizdovsky
returned the following weekend
with the woodcuts I had ordered,
I carefully removed my hardearned dollar bills from my safety
deposit envelope and gave them
to him. With a reminiscing smile,
he pushed back a portion of the
money, with words to the effect
that “this will be enough. I was a
student once, too.”
Even though he lived in
New York, he is well-known to
Winnipeggers. Over the years,
his works were exhibited at the
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Oseredok
Gallery, Mamaj Art Gallery,
Primavera, and at St. Andrew’s
College, where the Ukrainian
Students’ Club sponsored an
exhibition of his works.
During that exhibit in the late
1960s, he took the time to show the
children of the Prosvita Reading
Society Saturday School just how
a woodcut was made. He must
have made a great impression
on the students because, some of
them now adults, still remember
that day. Hnizdovsky’s works
hang in many Winnipeg homes,
homes of prominent and ordinary
That June, when I returned to
my summer job at Soyuzivka, a
Ukrainian resort in the Catskills
(New York State), a Hnizdovsky
exhibit was on one weekend.
There, among all the trees,
birds, vegetables and animals
was my owl, looking back at
me! I could not afford any large
work by the artist, but just had
to have a woodcut of daisies in
a glass. Those flowers, called
“Marguerites,” and my “Owl”
were part of a series of woodcuts
illustrating a collection of the
poems of John Keats.
Quite by accident, I did both. An
illustration of an owl in The New
York Times Book Review made
such an impression on me that I cut
it out and posted on the dormitory
bulletin board above my desk. I
hadn’t bothered to read or cut out
the text, so I did not know what
book the owl was illustrating or
who had drawn it.
The walls of the dining room
and the offices of Soyuzivka were
a rotating gallery for works by
prominent Ukrainian artists. To
this day I regret not buying one of
Hnizdovsky’s oils at the time. I
could not afford them. But the
paintings of vegetables and fruits
still haunt me – the bunch of green
onions tied with a string, and the
dark cherries falling out of a paper
bag. You could almost hear the
paper crinkling. And his portraits
were especially fine.
Jacques Hnizdovsky
Jacques Hnizdovsky was born in
Ukraine in 1915 and studied art
in Warsaw and Zagreb. He had
an early interest in the woodcut,
particularly those of Dürer and the
Japanese.
Shortly after he arrived in this
country in 1949, A. Hyatt Mayor
of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art chose one of his woodcuts
for a Purchase Award at a 1950
Minneapolis Institute of Art print
exhibition. It was a turning point
in his career and his life. From
that moment he was determined to
make his livelihood as an artist.
By the end of the 1950s he had
settled into the woodcut as his
primary medium. In 1962 he was
awarded First Prize at the Boston
Printmakers annual exhibition.
He was invited to participate in
the Contemporary U.S. Graphic
Arts exhibition which traveled
to the USSR in 1963, as well as
a similar exhibition to Japan in
1967. His woodcuts were included
in the Triennale Internazionale
della Xilographica in Italy in 1972.
In 1977 shows of his woodcuts
were held at the Long Beach Art
Museum, California, and Yale
University, and in 1978 and 1982
at the University of Virginia and at
the Hermitage Museum of Norfolk,
Virginia, in 1981.
He received a Tiffany
Fellowship in 1961, and
fellowships from the following:
MacDowell Colony in 1963, 1971,
1976, 1977; Yaddo Foundation
in 1978; Ossabaw Foundation
in 1980; Virginia Center for the
Creative Arts in 1979, 1981, 1982,
1983, and 1984.
In 1975 a catalogue raisonné of
his woodcuts Hnizdovsky Woodcuts
1944 - 1975 was published by
Pelican Publishing Co. of Gretna,
Louisiana. In 1987 an updated
version Jacques Hnizdovsky
Woodcuts and Etchings was
published, including all graphic
works made during his lifetime.
Hnizdovsky has contributed
illustrations to The Poems of
John Keats, 1964; The Poems of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1967;
Tree Trails of Central Park, 1971;
Flora Exotica, 1972; The Poems
of Thomas Hardy, 1979; The
Traveler’s Tree, 1980; The Poetry
of Robert Frost, 1981; Signum
Et Verbum, 1981; A Green Place,
1982; Birds and Beasts, 1990;
Behind the King’s Kitchen, 1992;
and The Girl in Glass in 2002.
Among the numerous permanent
collections with woodcuts by
Hnizdovsky are:
The Addison Gallery of American
Art, Andover, Massachusetts;
The Burnaby Art Gallery, British
Columbia; The Butler Institute
of American Art, Youngstown,
Ohio; The Chrysler Museum at
Norfolk, Virginia; The Cleveland
Museum of Fine Arts; The Davison
Art Center, Wesleyan University;
The Duke University Museum of
Art, Durham, North Carolina; The
Dulin Gallery of Art, Knoxville,
Tennessee; The Hunt Institute
for Botanical Documentation,
Pittsburgh; The Henry Art Gallery,
University of Washington, Seattle;
The Lauren Rogers Museum of
Art, Laurel, Mississippi; The
Louisiana Arts and Science Center,
Baton Rouge; The Louisiana
State Museum, New Orleans; The
Minneapolis Institute of Arts;
The Mississippi Museum of Art,
Jackson; The Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston; The National Museum of
American Art, Washington, DC;
The New Orleans Museum of Art;
The New York Public Library;
The Philadelphia Museum of
Art; The Tweed Museum of Art,
University of Minnesota; The U.S.
Information Agency, Washington,
DC; The Library of Congress and
The White House, Washington,
DC; The University of Delaware;
The Virginia Museum of Fine
Arts, Richmond; The Winnipeg Art
Gallery and Yale University.
Jacques Hnizdovsky died on
November 8, 1985.
REFLECTIONS
More than thirty years ago, while
still in art school in Zagreb, I
conceived the notion of creating a
series of tree portraits in woodcut.
I was then studying painting and
sculpture, but I had no previous
training in woodcutting. I was
so fascinated by the project that
despite my lack of training, in 1944
I decided to start working on it.
designer at Brown & Bigelow. After
many difficult years in Europe, I was
happy to begin living a stable life. I
did not know that in approximately
one year I would be giving up this
stability. The next few years, when
I tried to establish myself as an
independent artist, were probably
the most difficult in my life.
To prepare for the series of
trees, I started with some small
woodblocks. The first of these,
my first woodcut, was Head. I
cut several other small woodcuts
before I felt that I was somewhat
acquainted with the technique.
Then I turned to the trees.
The first tree subject I cut in
wood was Bush. Later I did a
drawing of a pine forest, which I
translated into the woodcut Forest.
These two woodcuts were not
meant to be part of the series. They
were only in preparation for it.
Working on these early
woodcuts, I ran into difficulties
and much self-doubt. I felt that
after a year of intense work, that I
could go no further. Discouraged,
I gave up not only my project for
a portfolio of trees but also the
woodcut itself.
My doubts about woodcutting
contaminated my painting. These
doubts, together with poor working
conditions, difficulties in getting art
materials, and difficulties of life in
postwar Europe, forced me to give
up painting as well for several years.
In 1949 I came to the United
States. I settled in Saint Paul,
Minnesota, where I got a job as a
One Sunday, not quite a year
after my arrival in the United
States, I was having lunch in a cafe.
A woman sitting at the next table
dropped a piece of paper. I picked it
up, and we started a conversation.
She was an artist and the paper that
fell on the floor was an entry form
for a graphics exhibition at the
Minneapolis Institute of Art. She
had an extra form I could fill out.
It was by this coincidence that two
of my woodcuts were included in a
show, that only a few days earlier I
knew nothing about.
To my great surprise, one of
the woodcuts, Bush, received
the Second Purchase Award. My
delight was even greater when
I learned that the juror of the
exhibition was A. Hyatt Mayor of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York. A few weeks later came
another pleasant surprise - my oil
painting Eggs received the second
prize at the Minnesota State Fair.
One of the jurors for the exhibition
was the prominent American artist
Yasuo Kuniyoshi.
These events awakened my
desire to become an independent
artist. I thought that I had
every reason to believe, after
such encouragement, that I
could manage to succeed as an
independent artist. The next
morning I knocked on the wooden
partition of my supervisor’s office
and declared that I was quitting my
job at Brown & Bigelow.
With determination to live as an
independent artist, with my small
savings, and with the clippings
from the Minneapolis newspaper,
I left Saint Paul for New York. It
did not take me long to realize my
complete innocence. In New York
no one was seriously interested
in my Minneapolis newspaper
clippings. My meager savings soon
came to an end. I found myself in
such dire circumstances, that only
my pride prevented my turning
back. The large room I had rented
on West 94th Street near Central
Park soon proved to be beyond
my means. I moved to a cheaper,
unheated apartment in the East
Bronx, and it was there that I tried
desperately to build the foundation
of my independence.
Coinciding with very difficult
material hardships came an inner
crisis. As soon as I had gained my
independence, I did not know what
to do with it. I had decided to do
nothing but paint, and I felt that I
did not know how to paint anymore.
HOw a print is made
Jacques Hnizdovsky’s method
of working has been described
by William Gorman in an article
published in the AMERICAN
ARTIST magazine in 1978.
“Using an original drawing as a
guide, Hnizdovsky begins a series
of drawings on parchment tracing
paper. Each successive image is
refined and modified toward the
stylization he wishes the design
to take. Strict attention is paid to
details, nuances, balance of masses,
black and white distribution. The
number of preliminary drawings
at this stage may vary between
six and twenty. Once a drawing
is completed to his satisfaction,
it is ready to be transferred to the
woodblock.
“For the transfer of the pencil
drawing to the woodblock, he
prefers to use a sheet of carbon
paper affixed to the woodblock
with masking tape. The master
drawing is then placed face down
on the carbon paper and secured
with tape while the design is
carefully traced with a pencil from
the back of the drawing paper. The
transferred image will be in exact
reverse position on the surface of
the block. As Hnizdovsky traces, he
continues to refine and strengthen
the overall design. Perhaps some
lines require thickening while
others may be lessened in weight.
The object at this stage is not only
to transfer, but to strive consciously
to improve and refine the linear
quality of the drawing.
When the entire drawing has been
traced and the tissue and carbon
removed, the carbon lines on the
woodblock are then intensified with
india ink and a fine brush or sometimes a felt tip pen. (This inking is
for permanence, as the carbon lines
would gradually smudge and lose
clarity as the block is handled during
the cutting process.) As he inks, he
further strengthens the structure of
the drawing.
“Hnizdovsky’s woodcutting
tools are simple instruments: a
sharp pointed flat blade similar to
a stencil knife and various V and U
shaped gouges, each implanted in
round wooden handles. The time
involved in the actual cutting of
the block depends on at least two
factors, the size of the design and
its complexity. Most of his larger
woodcuts entail weeks of cutting,
some may take months. The wood
planks are generally of a hardwood
such as cherry, pear, beech or apple,
which enable the artist to execute
his extremely detailed prints. While
Hnizdovsky favors the hardness of
pear wood for his intricate prints,
he also enjoys the soft pliable
quality of linoleum and has created
many black and white and color
linocuts.
“The inking, proofing and
pulling of an entire edition can
consume additional weeks of
tedious and painstaking work.
He hand prints five to ten trial
proofs, correcting and refining
each successive image. Once he
is satisfied with the image, he
proceeds to print the artist’s proofs,
an edition of approximately 35, and
then the regular designated edition
of between 100 and 200 prints. For
many years all of Hnizdovsky’s
blocks were printed by the hand
and spoon pressure method. This
was extremely time consuming.
In 1975 Hnizdovsky acquired a
manually operated Vandercook
proof press, which appreciably
lessened the printing time.”
Hnizdovsky still continued to print
all editions himself, except for the
etchings, which were printed under
his direct supervision.
Hnizdovsky’s work is being
enjoyed in books, as illustrations
and bookplates, as prints, paintings,
watercolors and drawings on
museum walls and the walls of his
many collectors.
My primary medium was oil, and it
was through painting that I hoped
to find my way out of this crisis.
But looking for a new direction,
more often than not, I found an
old one, or found a direction that
was not suitable to oil, so I tried
sculpture and ceramics.
When I could not find my
way in sculpture and ceramics, I
tried the color print. Many prints
of those early days have been
destroyed, but some are preserved
and bear witness to my desperate
attempt to get out of the blind alley.
One of these prints is Billboards.
It was one woodcut version of
numerous oil paintings on the same
theme. Most of these paintings
were destroyed or for economic
reasons, painted over. I had never
shown the woodcut Billboards.
I doubt that I printed a single
proof. Now, after many years, it
is appropriate to show Billboards
as one of the many different and
distant roads I traveled.
My purpose then was not the
refinement of the woodcutting
technique, just the opposite. I tried
to make my prints deliberately
rough and irregular. Before, for
my woodcuts, I needed the smooth
surface of pear wood. Now the
same fine woodblock was not only
unnecessary, but was a hindrance.
On my stretched canvases and
on my woodblocks I saw hundreds
of paths, and I didn’t know which
one to take.
After several years of hopeless
work, I began to find my way.
Finding my way, I also found my
purpose. I found it in my own
room, in my corridor, on my
sidewalk, and in the blade of grass
growing between two blocks of
concrete in front of the house I
lived in. Everywhere I went, things
became clearer and more visible
to me. I had an insurmountable
desire to paint it all. No longer
was I concerned how to paint. The
question of how, which for years
was so important to me, suddenly
became secondary.
At that time I was not working
on any woodcuts. I was busy with
my paintings, which, to my surprise
even began to sell. But I knew that
as with my paintings, I would soon
find my way with my woodcuts.
Although I made radical
attempts to break away from my
former habits in printmaking, I
was still not completely liberated.
Despite the highly simplified
and almost abstract pattern-like
approach of my new experiments,
I was still a slave to the frame. My
prints still had to have a border
even if I constantly asked why.
In 1958, fourteen years after
my first woodcut, I did Fir Trees.
Later I cut another, larger and more
elongated version of the same
subject. The border was such a
part of me at that time, that I found
justification to leave out only two
shorter horizontal bars. Only by
1960 did I have the courage to
eliminate the border completely.
Since then most of my woodcuts
have been without borders. Now I
put a border on a woodcut not from
habit, but only when there is some
justification for it.
I shall try to answer two
questions often asked of me: Why
is the human figure almost totally
absent from my woodcuts, and why
in my recent projects do I devote so
much attention to trees, plants, and
animals?
My art school training was
strictly academic, and my interest
at that time was mostly in the
human figure. I worked strictly
from a model. I liked portraiture,
especially the character portrait.
and this new country and its people
made a great impression on me.
I felt an insurmountable desire
to paint them. But how could I
approach these people when I had
neither money to offer them for
posing nor sufficient English to
explain to them what was on my
mind? I tried to sketch people in
parks and public squares. It is a
paradox that in big cities where so
many live, it is almost impossible
to find contact with people. The
artist has to go to nature or to lock
himself within his inner abstract
thought. There is another reason
why the human figure was becoming
secondary in my woodcuts. My
experiments in painting and in
printmaking, which came as a
result of my crisis, were mostly of
a formal nature. At that time, even
if I used the human figure, I treated
it as a faceless form. To a certain
degree this can be seen in my 1960
woodcut Bronx Express.
- J.H.
Artwork:
Young and Old
1944
woodcut
Herd of Sheep
1964
Woodcut
Ram Profile
1969
woodcut
Johann Sebastian Bach
1971
woodcut
Owl
1974
woodcut
Blue Peacock
1980
woodcut
Praying Child
1947
woodcut
Marguerites
1964
woodcut
Two Rams
1969
woodcut
Ibex
1972
woodcut
Prairie Chicken
1974
woodcut
Peacock
1980
woodcut
Five Apples
1951
linocut
Owl
1964
woodcut
Flamingo
1970
woodcut
Portrait of Margareth Mol
1971
painting
Fern on Black
1975
woodcut
Hogback Mountains
1980
woodcut
Nude
1952
woodcut
Thistle
1964
woodcut
Goose
1970
woodcut
Fern
1972
painting
Herd of Merino Sheep
1975
woodcut
Bread
1981
etching
Card Players
1953
woodcut
Willow
1964
woodcut
Sleeping Cat
1970
woodcut
7:45 A.M.
1972
woodcut
Gladioli
1976
woodcut
Self-portrait
1981
woodcut
Young Willow
1961
woodcut
Moppet
1965
woodcut
Basket of Apples
1971
woodcut (col.)
Emperor Penguin
1973
linocut
Ram and Ewes
1976
woodcut
Group of Sheep
1983
woodcut
Field
1962
woodcut
Opsunflower
1965
woodcut
Braided Onions – poster
1971
woodcut
Green Peppers in a Box
1973
painting
Bowl of Cherries
1978
woodcut
Resting Sheep
1983
woodcut
Bouquet
1964
woodcut
Wheatfield
1965
woodcut
Bromus
1971
etching
Horned
1973
woodcut
Cow
1978
linocut
Periwinkle
1984
woodcut
Cabbage
1964
woodcut
Bowl of Roses
1968
woodcut
Camperdown Elm
1971
woodcut
Sleeping Goose
1973
woodcut
Geranium
1984
woodcut
Caged Eagle
1964
woodcut
Cat
1968
woodcut
Grass
1971
etching
Brown Pelican
1974
woodcut
Ukrainian Institute of
Modern Art Poster
The Kiss
1978
linocut
Native Porcupine
1974
woodcut
Sheep in a Pen II
1978
linocut
Loon
1985
woodcut