A painter, designer, cartoonist, illustrator, teacher and lecturer, Eugene Matthew Dyczkowski (1899-1987) was born on May 1, 1899 in a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was known to have lived in Buffalo and Grand Island, New York. He studied art with Eugene Zimmerman (“Zim”), the noted American cartoonist, through a correspondence course, at the Albright Art School, Buffalo, NY and with John Rummell, Arthur Lee, and Eliot O’Hara at the Buffalo School of Fine Arts.
Dyczkowski was member of the Buffalo Society of Artists, the Niagara Falls Society of Artists, Rockport Art Association, The Patteran, Kenmore Art Society, New York, the Rockport Art Association, Polish Arts Club (Co-founder and First President) Buffalo, the American Council of Polish Cultural Clubs (First President), and the Grand Island Art Club, New York.
He exhibited at the Buffalo Society of Artists, at the 1929 World’s Fair in Posen, Poland, at the Rockport Art Association Memorial Art Gallery, at the Buffalo Society of Artists 1924-1955, at The Patteran, Buffalo, NY 1946, Rochester, NY, at the Albright Art Gallery 1935-1946 (solo 1944, traveling exhibition 1946), at the Kosciuszko Foundation, New York City, at the Polish-American Artists Exhibition , New York 1948 (prize), and at the Old Fort Niagara Association 1953. Also numerous other Polish-American Group Exhibitions in Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, DC, and Syracuse, NY, and the Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo, NY, solo exhibition 1944.
Dyczkowski was the Educational Director at the Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY. He developed art lectures for radio broadcast. He once entered a deliberately incompetent painting, signed “Noga Malawane” (painted with feet) to prove the incompetence of a jury selecting works for Western New York exhibitions. In 1933, as a WPA artist, he began producing murals for schools and state offices. He turned to abstract painting in the 1950s, and was actively involved in the national and local art communities.
His work is represented in many prestigious public and private collections including the Castellani Art Museum, Niagara University, Niagara Falls, NY, the Rockport Art Association Museum, the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY, the Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, TN, the Officer’s Club, Fort Niagara, NY, and the Burgard Vocational High School, Buffalo, NY.
Eugene M. Dyczkowski died in Niagara Falls, New York in June of 1987.
Sources:
Who Was Who in American Art
Davenport’s
Social Security Death Index
David F. Martin, “Eugene M. Dyczkowski: Lusty Realist of Depression-Era Buffalo.”
Western New York Heritage Magazine, Winter 2004
Western New York Heritage Magazine, vol. 6, number 4, Page 18, 2003, Western New York Heritage Press, Inc, David F. Martin Martin-Zambito Fine Art
