Jacques Hnizdovsky - Biography

Biography

Jacques Hnizdovsky was born in Ukraine in the Borshchivskyi Raion of Ternopil Oblast to direct descendants of a noble family bearing the Korab coat of arms. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and Zagreb, and produced hundreds of paintings, as well as over 300 prints (woodcuts, etchings and linocuts) after his move to the United States in 1949. He was inspired by woodblock printing in Japan as well as the woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer. These influences on his early works can be seen on his website. Most of his woodcuts, (apart from exhibition posters, which he also printed himself directly from the woodblock) were printed on washi, which in English is erroneously translated into "rice paper"

Hnizdovsky's woodcuts frequently depict plants and animals, and the primary reason for this, in the beginning, after his arrival in the United States, was the lack of funds to pay for a human model. But what was first a substitute for the human form later became his primary subject matter. He was well known in all the botanical gardens in New York, where he would find subjects willing to pose for no cost. At the Bronx Zoo, he also found many models that were willing to pose, as he would write, "for peanuts". Andy, the orangutan that opened the Ape House of the Bronx Zoo when he was just a baby, was one of Hnizdovsky's favorite models. When he died, the Bronx Zoo immediately purchased the woodcut in remembrance of Andy. Another favorite model for one of Hnizdovsky's best known prints, was also from the Bronx Zoo. The Sheep went on to be the print Hnizdovsky was best known for, and it illustrated the poster for his very successful exhibition at the Lumley Cazalet Gallery in London. This poster, incidentally, can be seen in the kitchen scene of the film The Hours.

The artist also designed several stamps and a souvenir sheet for the Ukrainian Plast postal service, issued in 1954 and 1961.

Hnizdovsky has exhibited widely and his works are in the permanent collections of many museums worldwide. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has a large collection of his prints.

An interview with Hnizdovsky, in Ukrainian, was conducted in 1982 was conducted by Ulana Pawuszczak Interview with Yakiv (Jacques) Hnizdovsky (Яків Гніздовський).

Jacques Hnizdovsky died in 1985 and is buried at the Lychakivskiy Cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine. His archives are housed at the Slavic and Baltic Division of the New York Public Library.

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