Saturday opening at New Haven Public Library

New Haven Free Public Library Art Gallery
133 Elm St., New Haven
Centuries of Inspiration: Memorial Exhibition of paintings by Jules L. Szemanczky
Through June 17, 2009.
Artist's reception: Sat., May 23, 2:30—4:30 p.m.

Press release

Jules L. Szemanczky taught Art in the New Haven School system for 33 years, teaching courses in painting, art history, graphic lettering, ceramics, wood-work design and carving, and metal engraving at both James Hillhouse and Wilbur Cross High Schools in New Haven, CT. Jules Szemanczky passed away on May 16, 2008.

Szemanczky was born in New Haven in 1926 and later recalled, "My memories of early life were dominated by the "Era of the Great Depression." Enlisting in 1943, he served as a Technical Sergeant in the Army Corps of Engineers. In 1950, he graduated from New Haven Teachers College (presently Southern Connecticut State University) and taught Art until his retirement in 1983.

Mr. Szemanczky's students have swept both civic and state art competitions for decades, and many have gone on to successful careers in the arts, inflamed by his passion for beauty and form, and inspired by his gift for liberating the bounteous muse.

After his retirement from teaching, he continued creating his own collection of oil and acrylic paintings. His study and deep admiration of the vision and invincibility of the great Renaissance-Mannerist and Baroque European traditions led to a decade in which he reproduced many Masters' works: Tiepolo and Son, Caravaggio, Correggio, Bierstadt, and others. "Each work took 3 or 4 months to paint, and employed various technical styles of painting that I discovered in books revealing these Masters' individual techniques and preferences." These artwork reproductions still pour out his love in many homes and institutions. Stepping into his living room is like walking into a room at the Uffizzi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

Mr. Szemanczky was a vibrant leader and caring man, absorbed by social issues and ancient philosophical forces and transformations. In philosophy, his models were the Greek Stoics, who lived life truthfully and rightly, with great patience for those who didn't.

The various experimental styles in his earlier paintings relate to themes and subjects he discovered in literature and art books, and influenced his themes in painting.

"In earlier works, casein paints applied with brushes dominated my style for a time," he wrote, "then my style gradually made the quantum leap to my oil paintings of the 1970s which reflect both the traditional style of glaze painting and a mixture of Direct (Alia Prima) methods. These are good examples of oil paintings that prepared me for the much larger and more difficult works to come after my retirement."