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| (1896-1998) |
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Medium/Discipline: Painting
Birthplace: Sochaczew, Poland
Place of Death: Baltimore, Maryland
Maryland Affiliation: Depicts Maryland subjects, Active while in residence
Prominent Theme: portraits
Style/Period: Realism
Gender: Male
Race/Ethnicity: White
Biography: Born in Poland and settling with his wife in Baltimore, portrait painter Stansilav Rembski once said, "I would rather be Rembski of Baltimore on a visit to New York than Rembski of New York on a visit to Baltimore." (Fred Rasmussen, "Stanislav Rembski, 101, Renowned Artist," Baltimore Sun, 1998) The son of an interior decorator, Rembski began by drawing animals and shapes as a young child and his talent was readily apparent to his teachers. Rembski earned a degree in engineering and then art then departed for Germany following World War I at age 23 where he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin and served as portrait painter of nobility. His artistic inspiration was Leonardo da Vinci.
Rembski moved in 1922 to the United States where he hoped to make a cultural contribution like his 18th-century countrymen Pulaski and Kosciuskzko had. He hoped to bring "the lost art of [Old Master] portraiture" to the U.S. (Robyn Nissim, "The Old Master," Baltimore Magazine, May 1995, p. 38) He arrived in New York City where he remained for 18 years. After his portrait of Katheryn Johnson, wife of Baltimore writer Gerald Johnson, appeared on the cover of the society magazine Gardens, Houses and People in 1938, Rembski was inundated with commissions and moved to Baltimore in 1940 to the Bolton Hill neighborhood. "As a social portraitist, his work was exquisite," said Ann Didusch Schuler, a Baltimore portrait painter and head of Baltimore's Schuler School of Art. "It was the fine details that he put into his paintings—for instance, the draperies behind a subject." (Rasmussen)
Stanislav Remski called himself a "painter of people." Working in the style of classical portraiture for more than 80 years, Rembski completed more than 1,500 oil portraits of both national and Baltimore's prominent society figures including: Babe Ruth; Woodrow Wilson; Franklin D. Roosevelt; Johns Hopkins; five of Maryland's first ladies; Maryland judges, business leaders, clergyman and physicians; Baltimore Mayor J. Harold Grady; and Anton Witik, the inventor of the metal e-string on the violin. The Babe Ruth portrait hangs in the Babe Ruth Museum, the Woodrow Wilson portrait in the Woodrow Wilson Museum in Washington, and the FDR portrait, commissioned by Eleanor Roosevelt, hangs in the FDR Memorial Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York. Rembski's portrait of Johns Hopkins hangs in Whites Hall in Gambrills, Maryland, which was Hopkins' birthplace.
Rembski said of his method of portrait painting, "I have the person come down and sit for the whole development of the picture so that it's a collaboration, not just a dead still life." The process can take as few as three sittings or many over the course of a number of months; usually his portraits took about six sittings. He encourages those viewing his portraits to look, in his words, for the "essence," "the hidden depths of the human soul. Not just the face." (Nissim, p. 39) The scale of Rembski's paintings ranges widely to include murals.
In the late 1930s, Rembski established a summer studio at Deer Isle in Maine. His work done there showed the influence of his mentors, Leon Dabo (1865-1960), a disciple of James Whistler and Academician at the National Academy of Design, and Edward Hopper (1882-1967). Rembski completed a portrait of Leon Dabo.
On the occasion of his 100th birthday in 1996, Rembski was the subject of a centennial exhibition at New York's Salmagundi Club. A devout Catholic, Stanislav Rembski authored a number of lectures and articles on mysticism in art. On the occasion of the show at Salmagundi, Stanislav Rembski said, "Art is the process of taking dust from the earth—pigment—and transforming it into luminous light. That is the task of the artists, of giving life and spirit to the dust of the earth." He also spoke about his work being "complete" but never finished: "Life finishes nothing. Only death finishes." (Rasmussen) Stanislav Rembski was a 32nd-degree Mason, a member of the Cosmopolitan Club, Charcoal Club, Salmagundi Club, Torch Club, Polish Heritage Association of Maryland, American Artist's Professional League and a Member of the National Society of Mural Painters. He was a teacher and lecturer and critic at the Maryland Institute College of Art from 1952 to 1955.
Rembski's first wife, Isabelle Walton Everett, died in 1980. In 1985, Rembski married his second wife, Dorothy Kline, who was an inspiration and supported him in his life and work until his death at 101 in 1998. Rembski's work is a part of school, college, government building, church and private collections in the Maryland region and across the country. Two murals he completed include "Conversion of William Duke of Aquitane," commissioned by the trustees of St. Bernard's School, Gladstone, New Jersey (1931) and "I Am the Life," at Memorial Episcopal Church (1962).
Education/Training: Art Students League; Engineering, Warsaw Technological Institute, Poland; Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France; Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin Germany, 1923; E. Wolfsfeld, Berlin, Germany
Art-related Employment: portrait painter, writer, teacher, lecturer, critic
Selected References: Nissim, Robyn. "The Old Master," Baltimore Magazine, May 1995, p. 38).
Rasmussen, Fred, "Stanislav Rembski, 101, Renowned Artist," Baltimore Sun, 1998.
Tubman, Kathryn Geraghty. Photos by Aubrey Bodine. "Art is Not Just A Living; It's a Way of Life," Baltimore Sunday Sun Magazine, March 8, 1964, p. 28.
Other Publications: Rembski, Stanislav. "Mysticism in Art" and other lectures published in 1936.
Rembski, Stanislav. "Freedom, New Age," 1972.
Rembski, Stanislav. Articles - "Art and Religion" "Reflections on Symbolism" New Church Messenger.
Maryland Institutions Holding Artworks: Board of Education, Baltimore, Maryland; The Johns Hopkins University; Goucher College; Loyola College; State House, Annapolis, Maryland; University of Maryland University College
Single-Artist Exhibitions: Dudensing Galleries, New York City, 1927.
Society of Independent Artists, 1931, 1936.
Carnegie Hall Gallery, New York City, 1934.
Arthur Newton Gallery, New York City, 1935.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1947.
Baltimore Institute of Art, 1950.
Calvert Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1990.
Salmagundi Club, New York City, 1996.
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