Elaine Kowalsky; artist (car accident)
Hyfler/Rosner
Vivacious printmaker and campaigner whose work echoed her
personality
Judith Nesbitt
Wednesday September 28, 2005
Guardian
Really cool stuff:
http://www.artistsinschools.co.uk/artist_info.php?artist_id=150
http://www.kowalsky.co.uk/md.html
http://www.platformprojects.org.uk/2004/plat44/44image4.html
Elaine Kowalsky, who has died in a car accident aged 56, was
an artist of distinction whose work was exhibited
internationally. An unapologetic and passionate Canadian,
she was also firmly embedded in London's East End, where she
lived and worked for more than 25 years.
Her greatest artistic achievement was in the medium of
printmaking: her boldly experimental woodcuts, measuring 6ft
x 4ft, arrested the eye with their vivid imagery, sumptuous
colour and the sheer verve of her mark-making. She worked in
a wide range of media: besides lithography, monoprinting,
painting and drawing, she produced artists' books, ceramics,
rugs and screens, and even a pop-up book, The Dog Detective
of Barking (1994).
Her art, however, was not simply a demonstration of
exceptional graphic skill - it spoke powerfully about what
she described as "our loves, lives and loneliness in the
postmodern world". It had an urgent, visceral quality and
often an exquisite delicacy and fluid touch. It offered a
view on the world imbued with a specifically female
experience.
Born in Winnipeg, Elaine was the only daughter among the
three sons of Cliff and Rosemary Kowalsky. After training at
the University of Manitoba School of Art (1967-71), she came
to London to take a postgraduate course in printmaking at St
Martin's School of Art (1973-74), and study at Brighton
Polytechnic.
Ever practical in support of the interests of artists,
Elaine was a founder member of the North Star Studios
printmakers co-operative in Brighton in 1977. One of her
greatest legacies is the key role she played as a founding
director of the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS)
in 1984. She was one of a small band of artists (the others
were Eduardo Paolozzi, Susan Hiller, David Shepherd, Philip
Dahan-Bouchard, John Alexander-Sinclair and Michael
Rizzello) who successfully formed an organisation that, for
20 years, has fought for artists' rights, and today has
52,000 members.
Elaine gave time and prodigious energies to DACS, and was
proud to serve as chair of the board of directors from 1984
to 2000. A current high-profile campaign is the artist's
resale right, for which Elaine had been fighting tenaciously
for the last 10 years. She shares the credit that, from
January 1 next year, any artist, or his or her estate, will
receive a fixed percentage of the price when their work is
resold. This is the most important benefit for artists in
modern copyright history.
In 1987, Elaine was the first recipient of the Henry Moore
printmaking fellowship, hosted by Leeds Polytechnic (now
Leeds Metropolitan University). This award came at an
exceptionally fertile period in her career and opened many
opportunities. An exhibition at Canada House Gallery,
London, and the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, in 1986, was
followed the next year by an exhibition at Leeds City Art
Gallery, which toured nationally.
In 2000, she staged an exhibition in the Freud Museum,
London, titled Marian and Dorothy; this was a particular
pleasure for an artist so well versed in psychoanalytic
theory. She was represented by the Redfern Gallery, London,
from the mid-80s to the early 90s, and her work appears
today in many public collections, including the Victoria and
Albert Museum, London, and the Smithsonian Institute,
Washington. It has also been shown in Toronto, Tokyo,
Istanbul, Johannesburg and Portland, Oregon.
This success notwithstanding, Elaine well knew the struggle
of every artist to be exhibited, represented and collected;
she was resourceful in creating opportunities for herself.
Her online Diary of an Aging Art Slut regaled readers with
her wry observations on the contemporary art world. At
college and in her studio classes, she was an inspirational
tutor, regularly taking students to galleries and museums -
for some their first-ever visit. Keen to keep pace with
current debates, she studied for an MA in visual theory at
the University of East London (1992-94).
She was excited by her recent work, particularly a portfolio
produced with Kit Gresham at the Print Studio, Cambridge,
and had embarked on a new body of work, which, as a
consequence of two recent summers spent in Canada, saw her
drawing and painting the open plains and big skies of "back
home" in a quietly defiant way that embraced her rootedness
in a landscape that had never left her imagination. She
talked about returning to Canada for her retirement.
I first met Elaine when I was a young curator at Leeds City
Art Gallery, and have never forgotten hearing her voice
reverberating down the phone, announcing her arrival like
the Queen of Sheba. She was the first artist I came to know
as a personal friend, and her glamorous persona and
indomitable spirit made a lasting impression.
An insatiable collector of vintage china, she could emerge
from the least promising junk shop with some treasure to add
to her ever growing collection of Poole pottery. She had a
strong faith and strong principles; the admission of women
to the Anglican priesthood prompted her to rejoin the church
in celebration, and she became a devoted member of her local
congregation, Holy Trinity, Bow.
Elaine married Elton Bash in 1978. She had no children of
her own, but lavished her maternal instincts on those she
loved, and especially Emma Furlong-Hems. Elaine and Elton's
household was a home from home for many. She baked Ukrainian
bread, in observance of her family heritage. She was a great
woman: sassy, loud, unfazed by anything or anyone.
Elaine was struck by a car near her home at Mile End, and
died instantly. She is survived by her husband Elton, her
mother Rosemary Kowalsky, her brothers Cliff, Barry and Ken,
and her many nieces and nephews.
· Elaine Gloria Kowalsky, artist and campaigner, born
September 24 1948; died September 17 2005