Artysta
Jerzy Kenar
Biografia
From wood and bronze he sculpts in Chicago - from church doors to O'Hare airport. Jerzy Kenar, founder of the Wooden Gallery, is among the most important artists of the American Polonia.
Jerzy Kenar (b. 1948 in Iwonicz-Zdrój) is a Polish-American sculptor working in wood, bronze and acrylic-resin-based composites. In 1973 he left Poland for good, going first to Sweden, and in 1979 he emigrated to the United States, where in 1980 he opened the Wooden Gallery in Chicago - a place that to this day remains an important centre of the cultural life of the Chicago Polonia.
His career gained momentum in the mid-1990s, when he received commissions for the decoration of O'Hare International Airport and the Harold Washington Library in Chicago. Kenar became famous above all as a creator of sacred art - he made the interior décor and woodcarving elements for many churches of the Chicago area, including the monumental „Millennium Doors” for Holy Trinity Church, one of the Chicago „Polish cathedrals”.
A master of sculpture in wood, he combines craftsmanly mastery with the spiritual and communal dimension of public art; he is also a generous patron of the Chicago art scene. His works - from intimate forms to monumental realisations, such as the sculpture commemorating the victims of violence at St Sabina Church - make him one of the most important figures of Polish art in exile.