Edmund Lewandowski
{{Short description|American painter}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Edmund Lewandowski
| image = Artist Lewandowski-Edmund 1940.jpg
| caption = Edmund Lewandowski in 1940
| birth_date = {{birth date|1914|07|03}}
| birth_place = Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US
| death_date = {{death date and age|1998|09|07|1914|07|03}}{{cite web |last= |first= |date= February 25, 2025 |title= Edmund D. Lewandowski, United States, Social Security Numerical Identification Files (NUMIDENT), 1936-2007 |url= https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6KQP-2K9Z?lang=en/ |website= Family Search |access-date=2025-03-08}}
| death_place = Rock Hill, South Carolina, US
| field = Painting
| training = Layton School of Art
| movement = Precisionism, Social Realism, Regionalism
}}
Edmund D. Lewandowski (July 3, 1914 – September 7, 1998) was an American Precisionist artist who was often exhibited in the Downtown Gallery alongside other artists such as Charles Sheeler, Charles Demuth, Georgia O'Keeffe, Ralston Crawford, George Ault, and Niles Spencer.{{cite archive |item = Artist Files, Lewandowski, Edmund, 1936-1946 |item-url= https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/downtown-gallery-records-6293/series-2/reel-554924-frames-1190-1317/ |type= Textual record |date= 1936–1946 |pages= 1190–1317 |series= Artist Files, A-Z, 1917-1970, undated |box= 24 |collection= Downtown Gallery Records, 1824-1974, bulk 1926-1969 |collection-url= https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/downtown-gallery-records-6293/ |repository= Archives of American Art |institution= Smithsonian Institution |location = Washington, DC |oclc= 1030320616 |accession= 2025-03-08}}
Early life
Edmund Lewandowski was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 3, 1914. He attended the Layton School of Art from 1931 until his graduation in 1934.{{ref-needed|date=March 2025}}
Career
File:Air Mail Service, by Edmund Lewandowski, 1940.jpg]]
He assumed a public school teaching position to make a living while he pursued painting on his own and sought commissions in advertising and magazine illustration. In 1936, he was invited by prominent modern art dealer Edith Halpert to join her Downtown Gallery. That same year, he began painting United States post office murals commissioned by the Section of Painting and Sculpture. During 1939 and 1940 executed murals for the post office in Caledonia, Minnesota, titled Hog Raising; Hamilton, Illinois, titled On the River; and Stoughton, Wisconsin, titled Air Mail Service.
File:Milwaukee War Memorial Mosaic Lewandowski Korab.tif
From 1942 to 1946, Lewandowski made maps and camouflage for the United States Army Air Forces and United States Air Force. The otherworldly clarity of Lewandowski's work won him inclusion in a show themed around Magic Realism at the Museum of Modern Art in 1943.{{ref-needed|date=March 2025}} In 1947, he was appointed to the faculty of the Layton School of Art.{{ref-needed|date=March 2025}} In 1949, he moved to Florida State University, where he remained until 1954.{{ref-needed|date=March 2025}} Following his tenure in Florida, he returned to the Layton School as director. Soon after, architect Eero Saarinen asked him to create a mosaic for the western facade of the new Milwaukee County War Memorial he was designing, which would also host the new Milwaukee Art Center.{{cite web|title = West Facade Mosaic Mural|url = https://warmemorialcenter.org/west-facade-mosaic-mural/|website = warmemorialcenter.org |access-date = 2025-02-07}}
Lewandowski's final position was as professor and chairman of the Art Department at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, from 1973 until 1984. Upon his retirement, he was named an emeritus professor of the institution. He died in Rock Hill on September 7, 1998.
References
{{Reflist}}
Bibliography
- {{cite book |last= Leeds |first= Valerie Ann |date= 2010 |title= Edmund Lewandowski: Precisionism and Beyond |location= Flint, MI |publisher= Flint Institute of Arts |isbn= 978-0939896301}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewandowski, Edmund}}
Category:United States Army Air Forces soldiers
Category:Winthrop University faculty
Category:Florida State University faculty
Category:Artists from Milwaukee
Category:20th-century American painters
Category:American people of Polish descent
Category:Section of Painting and Sculpture artists
{{US-painter-1910s-stub}}