Stanley Bielecky Mid Century Ink Sketches Including "Chow"

Item Details

Chow
Ink on paper
Unsigned

Stanley Bielecky (American, 1903 – 1985)
Chow, 1942
Untitled (Three Sketch Pages), circa 1940s
Ink drawings on paper
Unsigned
One page inscribed to verso with title, date, ‘Stan’, and ‘Fort Harrison’

A collection of sketchbook pages including one titled Chow by listed American artist Stanley Bielecky. Three of the pages depict figure studies of men in World War II era clothing and military uniforms posing and mid-stride. The fourth piece is titled Chow and depicts the long lines of soldiers at a military base as they wait for entry into the mess hall. It is inscribed to the verso with ‘Stan’, the title, ‘Fort Harrison’, and the date December 1942. All are presented unframed in a protective acetate sleeve.

Stanley Bielecky was born in 1903, near Berlin, Germany and came to the United States when he was three settling in East Chicago, Indiana with his family. He received some training in the 1930s at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Chicago Art Institute as well. After working as a commercial artist for some time, Bielecky became a fine arts instructor at Valparaiso University in 1941. He first visited Mackinac Island in the 1930s and in the summer of 1941, he was co-founder and director of the Mackinac Island Summer School of Art. From the late 1940s into the 1970s he painted thousands of watercolor and oil paintings of Mackinac. This regionalism style approach often categorizes Bielecky as an “American Scene Painter,” with a nod to Thomas Hart Benton.

Provenance
From the artist’s estate.

Condition

- discoloration to all pages, concentrated at edges; crease to lower right corner of “Chow”; all pages torn from a sketchbook.

Dimensions

- measures largest sheet, “Chow”.

Item #

16CIN997-3319