Joseph S. Kozlowski

Joseph S. Kozlowski

Joseph Stanley Kozlowski (1912–1992), American portrait and watercolor artist, was born in Frankfort, New York. The family later owned a farm in Clinton, New York and Kozlowski attended Clinton High School. He graduated from Syracuse University in 1936 with a BFA degree. In 1938 he was appointed chief artist and photographer with the Poole-Crockett archaeological expedition to study the Mayan ruins in the Yucatán Peninsula undertaken by Syracuse University. He returned to Yucatán in 1940 for a period of 8 months, using his paintings as barter for food and accommodations.

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Kozlowski joined the Merchant Marine and served as an able-bodied seaman (AB) shipping war material from New Orleans, Louisiana and Corpus Christi, Texas through the Panama Canal to Honolulu, Hawaii and, as he was fond of saying, "boat loads of post holes" on the return trip. Between ships he worked as a civilian photographer with the Army Air Corps at both Hickam Field, as it was called during the war, in Hawaii and at the Rome Air Depot in Rome, New York, currently called Griffiss Air Force Base.

From 1946 to 1949 he was a photography and art instructor at the Veterans Administration Hospital and rehabilitation facility in Bath, New York.

Settling in the East Syracuse, New York area in 1950, he was frequently commissioned by various organizations affiliated with Syracuse University and the State University of New York to paint portraits of notable members of the teaching staff for their institutional collections. He also worked as a technical illustrator for the Prosperity Company and later freelancing in that capacity. He eventually obtained teaching credentials and taught art in the East Syracuse-Minoa Central School District until he retired in the late 1970s.

Commissioned portraits were most often signed "J.S. Kozlowski", generally in bold block letters. Other works, regardless of medium were rarely signed or dated.