Stanislav Rembski

Rembski was born and raised in Sochaczew, Poland, during Czarist days. The son of a prominent interior decorator, Rembski began drawing animals as a child. He later earned an engineering degree from Warsaw Technological Institute and studied painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Warsaw. At age twenty-three Rembski enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. While trying to avoid military service in Poland, he was captured by the German army and threatened with execution. Rembski quickly sketched the face of a guard, who invited him to his own house to hide.

After painting German nobility in the early 1920s, Rembski moved to New York, where he set up a studio in Brooklyn and became a U.S. citizen in 1929. A one-man show at Carnegie Hall in 1934 brought him wide acclaim; he painted portraits, murals, and landscapes. In 1938, he discovered Baltimore – allegedly the only city where it was not snowing while Rembski was on his way to Oklahoma to paint Osage Indian Chief Lookout. He settled in Baltimore in 1940, where he continued as a portrait painter, taught a charcoal sketch class, and wrote about art and religion. An exhibition of his portraits was held at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1947.

During his career, Rembski painted some 1,500 portraits, including those of five Maryland first ladies, Hubert H. Humphrey, Babe Ruth, Brigham Young, and Johns Hopkins. His portraits are in museums and private collections throughout Europe, North America, and Australia. His posthumous portrait of Woodrow Wilson hangs in the Woodrow Wilson Museum in Washington, while his portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt, commissioned by Eleanor Roosevelt, hangs in his presidential library in Hyde Park, New York. He summered in Deer Island, Maine, where he painted the local fishing scene.

On his 100th birthday, Rembski was the subject of a centennial exhibition of his work at New York’s Salmagundi Club.

Stanislav Rembski, 101, renowned artist Polish-born portraitist known for precision

By Fred Rasmussen 
Baltimore Sun 

Sep 16, 1998 at 12:00 am

Stanislav Rembski, the internationally known Polish-born Baltimore portraitist, died Monday evening of cancer at Sinai Hospital. He was 101.

The prodigious Bolton Hill artist, whose work was admired for its Flemish meticulousness and vivaciousness, completed at least 1,500 oil portraits. He was the subject of a centennial exhibition -- of his work nearly two years ago on his 100th birthday at New York's prestigious Salmagundi Club.

A month before his death, he was completing commissions from his cramped second-floor studio in his rowhouse, in the 1400 block of Park Ave., where he had lived since 1948.

"He was absolutely amazing as an artist," said Ann Didusch Schuler, head of Baltimore's Schuler School of Art and also a well-known portrait artist.

Mr. Rembski's portraits are in museum and private collections throughout Europe, North America and Australia. His posthumous portrait of Woodrow Wilson hangs in the Woodrow Wilson Museum in Washington, while his Franklin D. Roosevelt portrait, commissioned by Eleanor Roosevelt, hangs in his presidential library in Hyde Park, N.Y.

"As a social portraitist, his work was exquisite. He was a very fine artist who had a wonderful style of painting," said Mrs. Schuler. "It was the fine details that he put into his paintings -- for instance, the draperies behind a subject. He was a master at this, and he realized that it was the details that counted," she said.

Sona Johnston, a Baltimore Museum of Art curator, said: "He occupies an important place in portraiture in this city."

'Important Maryland artist'

Said Dena Crosson, curator of the University of Maryland University College Arts Program, whose collection of 275 paintings are by this state's artists, "He is an important Maryland artist, and we're pleased to have him in our collection."

Portraits of five Maryland first ladies emerged from his studio -- Mrs. J. Millard Tawes, Mrs. William Preston Lane Jr., Mrs. Theodore R. McKeldin, Mrs. Herbert R. O'Conor and Mrs. Harry W. Nice. Other well-known figures include Hubert H. Humphrey, Babe Ruth, Brigham Young and Johns Hopkins, whose portrait hangs in Whites Hall, Gambrills, the birthplace of the philanthropist.

He also painted Baltimore Mayor J. Harold Grady; judges, business leaders, musicians, members of the clergy, physicians and actors.

"He certainly had a devoted following," Richard R. Harwood III, president of Purnell Galleries in Baltimore, said yesterday. "People were drawn to him because of his style and personality. He could provide a prospective client with a brilliant resume and an impressive body of work," he said.

Mr. Rembski, a dapper man standing no more than 5 feet 1 inch, with a finely trimmed mustache, goatee and hair combed straight back with a slight duck tail, was perhaps the last living embodiment in Baltimore of the artistic grandeur that vanished from Europe with the coming of World War I.

"In the neighborhood, he certainly added an exotic air and courtly manner," said Frank Shivers, a Bolton Hill neighbor, author and teacher.

Early promise

Born and raised in Sochaczew, Poland, during Czarist days, the son of a prominent interior decorator, he began drawing animals as a child. At school, his Russian drawing teacher recognized his talent and had him draw straight lines and triangles without a ruler for a year. The next year, he drew freehand circles.

He later earned an engineering degree from Warsaw Technological Institute and, at 23, enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, where he was exposed to the expressionist and abstract painters he had come to loathe.

Mr. Rembski, who described himself as "a painter of people," took his artistic inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci.

While trying to avoid military service in Poland, he was captured by the German army and threatened with execution. Thinking it would be his last work, he sketched a guard's face. Then, "instead of sending me out to be executed, he invited me to his own house, where he hid me in the cellar. He risked his own life. I always had the ability to draw a face in a few minutes."

After painting German nobility in the early 1920s, he left for New York, where he established a studio in Brooklyn Heights and became a U.S. citizen in 1929. A one-man show at Carnegie Hall in 1934 brought him critical acclaim.

A favorite story of his concerned how he came to discover Baltimore in 1938.

He was on his way to Oklahoma to paint Osage Indian Chief Lookout during a blizzard, and Baltimore was the only place where it wasn't snowing. So, in 1940, he settled here with his first wife, the former Isabelle Walton Everett, who died in 1980.

In an explanation of his deep affection for Baltimore, he told The Sun in an interview in the 1940s, "I would rather be Rembski of Baltimore on a visit to New York than Rembski of New York on a visit to Baltimore."

In the late 1930s, he established a summer studio at Deer Isle, Maine, and his work there showed the influence of his mentors, Leon Dabo, a disciple of James Whistler, and Edward Hopper.

Ballet before his easel

An extremely animated painter of whom it was said he moved like a ballet dancer before his easel, he was an economical artist who usually required no more than six sittings to complete a portrait. An opera fan, it wasn't uncommon for him to hum opera tunes while painting.

He also worked out compositions mentally before picking up the brush and making the first stroke.

"When I start painting, at once it is a picture -- always complete, but never finished. No matter how much work I do on it, no matter how it grows, it is unfinished. Life finishes nothing. Only death finishes," he told The Sun in an interview in the 1950s.

A deeply religious man who said the Lord's Prayer several times a day, Mr. Rembski neither drank nor smoked. Despite the passing of years, he continued to be active in the cultural and intellectual life of Baltimore.

"Art is the process of taking dust from the earth -- pigment -- and transforming it into luminous light. That is the task of the artist, of giving life and spirit to the dust of the earth," he said at the time of the Salmagundi Club exhibition.

Mr. Rembski, who was a 32nd-degree Mason, was a member of the Cosmopolitan Club, Salmagundi Club, Torch Club and Polish Heritage Association of Maryland.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Oct. 3 at St. Pius X Roman Catholic Church, 6428 York Road, Rodgers Forge.

He is survived by his wife of 17 years, the former Dorothy Marie Klein; a sister, Isabella Hamilton of California; a stepson, Dr. Norman F. Spector of Towson; a stepdaughter, Diane V. Harris of Burke, Va.; and four step-grandchildren.

Pub Date: 9/16/98

STANISLAV REMBSKI, 101, COMPLETED 1,500 OIL PORTRAITS

By The Baltimore Sun

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Sep 17, 1998 at 12:00 am

BALTIMORE — Stanislav Rembski, the internationally known Polish-born portraitist, died Monday evening of cancer. He was 101.

The prodigious artist, whose work was admired for its Flemish meticulousness and vivaciousness, completed at least 1,500 oil portraits during his lifetime. He was the subject of a centennial exhibition of his work almost two years ago on his 100th birthday at New York's prestigious Salmagundi Club.

Mr. Rembski's portraits are found in museums and private collections throughout Europe, North America and Australia. His posthumous portrait of Woodrow Wilson hangs in the Woodrow Wilson Museum in Washington, while his Franklin D. Roosevelt portrait, commissioned by Eleanor Roosevelt, hangs in his presidential library in Hyde Park, N.Y.

Born and raised in Sochaczew, Poland, the son of a prominent interior decorator, he began drawing animals as a child. At school, his Russian drawing teacher recognized his talent and had him draw straight lines and triangles without a ruler for a year. The next year, he drew freehand circles.

He later earned an engineering degree from the Warsaw Technological Institute and, at 23, enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, where he was exposed to the expressionist and abstract painters he had come to loathe.

Mr. Rembski, who described himself as "a painter of people," took his artistic inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci.

While trying to avoid military service in Poland, he was captured by the German army and threatened with execution. Thinking it would be his last work, he sketched a guard's face. Then, "instead of sending me out to be executed, he invited me to his own house, where he hid me in the cellar. He risked his own life. . . . I always had the ability to draw a face in a few minutes."

After painting German nobility in the early 1920s, he left for New York, where he established a studio in Brooklyn Heights and became a U.S. citizen in 1929. A show at Carnegie Hall in 1934 brought him critical acclaim.

He is survived by his wife of 17 years, the former Dorothy Marie Klein; a sister, Isabella Hamilton of Fawnkin, Calif.; a stepson, Dr. Norman F. Spector of Towson, Md.; a stepdaughter, Diane V. Harris of Burke, Va.; and four step-grandchildren.

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