Maksimilijan "Maxo" Vanka (May 11, 1889 – February 2, 1963) was a Croatian and American artist. He is best known for the series of murals he completed in 1937 and 1941 at St. Nicholas Croatian Church in Millvale, Pennsylvania.

Biography

Early life

Vanka was born in Zagreb in 1889

He studied art under Bela Čikoš Sesija at the College of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb as well as in Brussels with Jean Delville and Constant Montald. During World War I, he served with the Belgian Red Cross, because he was a pacifist and would not serve in the regular army. After the war, he returned to teach at the College of Arts and Crafts, becoming a professor in 1923. He taught composition, drawing and fresco work. He was elected as a corresponding member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1929. Working in two campaigns, the first in 1937 and the second in 1941, Vanka painted a total of 25 murals on the apse, walls, and ceiling of the church, covering a total area of approximately .

Vanka painted the first set of murals from April to June, 1937, working every day until 2 or 3 in the morning. During this time, he became convinced that the church was haunted by a ghostly, black-robed figure, which Adamic later wrote about in a piece for Harper's Magazine titled The Millvale Apparition. Nevertheless, he completed the murals on schedule. Although Vanka had "upset tradition in his introduction of labor scenes... within the sacred precincts of a church", the murals were met with acclaim from the press as well as church officials, and brought Vanka "significant if not prolonged fame."

Vanka was invited back to complete a second set of murals which were dedicated on November 16, 1941. With World War II then raging in Europe, these murals featured much more overtly anti-war subject matter than the earlier ones. while the Sun-Telegraph wrote that Vanka and the parish priest, Albert Zagar, were "tossing the dogmas of religious art into the ash-can". Vanka himself described the murals as "my contribution to America". although he did hold a small show consisting of "fruits, flowers, and allegorical landscapes" at the Charles Barzansky gallery in New York in 1957. As a result of this limited exposure, most of his later work is not well known.

Legacy

In 1968, Vanka's widow and daughter donated 47 of his works to the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. This collection was initially displayed at Vanka's former summer home on the island of Korčula, but was later moved to the Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters in Zagreb. In 2022, it was announced that the collection would be restored and moved back to Vanka's villa on Korčula.

Vanka and his work were largely forgotten in the United States after his death, but began to attract renewed attention since the 1990s. His first U.S. retrospective was held in 2001 at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. In 1991, the Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka was founded with the mission to preserve and maintain the murals at St. Nicholas Church. SPMMMV is leading a campaign to clean, restore and light the murals, and offers docent-led tours every Saturday at 11:00 and 12:30.

Vanka was mentioned in several writings by Louis Adamic and was the inspiration for his 1936 novel Cradle of Life: The Story of One Man's Beginnings. The novel tells the story of a man named Rudo Stanka whose early life mirrors Vanka's own. Vanka was also memorialized in Gift to America, a play written in 1981 by Professor David P. Demarest of Carnegie Mellon University.

References

  • Rome Away from Home: Masterpiece in Pennsylvania by Elizabeth Lev
  • Off the Wall: The Murals of St. Nicholas -- Pittsburgh Quarterly
  • The Murals of Maxo Vanka
  • Pittsburgh Center for the Arts-Paintings and Works on Paper, Maxo Vanka
  • The Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka
  • Murals for the Ages -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 4/25/2010
  • Pittsburgh Post-Gazette multi-media view of the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka
  • The Gift of Sympathy: the Art of Maxo Vanka
  • St Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale
  • [https://www.korculainfo.com/maksimilijan-vanka/]