At the beginning of August 101 years ago, sculptor Josip Turkalj was born (Rakovica, August 10, 1924 – Cleveland, July 3, 2007), whose artistic opus we are proud to recall
This summer, the recently printed monograph Joseph Turkaly – The Life of a Sculptor, published in Cleveland on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of this special artist, was presented to the Editorial Board of the Croatian Heritage Foundation’s Croatian Emigrant Almanac. According to Thomas Turkaly, the author of the gifted monograph, the artistic work of his father Joseph encompassed four different stylistic periods. The publisher of this lavishly illustrated monograph in English is The Turkaly Family Art Trust. More about the Trust at the following link: https://www.turkalyart.com/home. The book consists of 228 pages in encyclopedic format, following the sculptor’s creative path from a modest Croatian village located in Lika to the world’s metropolises, where his works are exhibited in galleries, famous basilicas, churches, university campuses and in museum and private collections.
The foreword to Turkalj’s monograph was written by curator and noted art scholar from the renowned Case Western Reserve University, Dr. Henry Adams, noting that “one of the fascinating features about Turkaly’s art is the way it mirrors the very ancient traditions of handmade craftsmanship, with a social and shared reality, untouched by the complex theories and critical debates that flood the art world today. It’s almost as if he were born a thousand years ago and experienced modernity at the same time.”
The principal photography in this publishing project is the work of Frank Prpić, who stands behind the cover design and book layout, adding a key feature to the overall impression of Turkalj’s monumental monograph. Numerous sketches of the sculptor, archival photos of earlier works, candid photos from the studio and family photos are featured in the book, along with copies of the most important memorabilia of this artist with roots in Lika.
Four Artistic Periods
To ensure clarity of this luxurious monograph, the text is divided into four chapters, basically following Turkalj’s creative stages in word and image, whose creativity stemmed from a wondrous synthesis of tradition and modernity. The first chapter, entitled Classical Training in Europe 1924 – 1956, focuses on the sculptor’s childhood in rural Croatia, with an emphasis on his first contact with sculpture and his move to the city for secondary education and to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. As a child, following in his village the installation of a bust dedicated to the famous leader of the Rakovica Uprising, Eugen Kvaternik, who was among the first to express the aspirations of the Croatian people for freedom from foreign rulers, Turkalj dreams of one day becoming a sculptor who will create such monuments! This scene in Rakovica proved to be a magical moment in which the idea of a future occupation was born in Joseph’s heart, which would become his lifelong passion. He also describes the sculptor’s difficult decision to leave his homeland during communism in order to continue his education in the free West at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, where he obtained his master’s degree (1954).
The second chapter in the logical sequence is significantly titled Creative Freedom in America 1957 – 1967, which describes Josip’s departure – at the invitation of the famous sculptor Ivan Meštrović – to America, where he worked as Meštrović’s assistant at the University of Notre Dame in the late 1950s. They were brought together by Croatian intellectuals in exile, whose work was published by Professor Vinko Nikolić’s iconic Hrvatska revija (Croatian Review). After Ivan Mestrovic passed away in 1962, Turkalj succeeded him as a full-time university professor at the Department of Fine Arts, where he taught sculpting for two years. Turkalj’s creative strides in artistic expression and efforts to build a career in his new homeland are meticulously described. At the same time, the young sculptor meets the love of his life (1960), marrying Julia Szente, with whom he had six sons.
The third chapter is symbolically titled A Return to Classical Roots 1968 – 1988, referring to Turkalj’s third creative phase, which coincides with his relocation to Cleveland, home to a large Croatian emigrant community. There, he accepted a teaching assignment at Gilmour Academy and worked tirelessly in the studio to support his growing family. This family and business move allowed him to take on larger commissions and spread his reputation in American art circles.
The fourth chapter is dedicated to the sculptor’s golden age, when he is occupied with Exploration in Contemporary Style 1989 – 2007, and we learn that he retired from teaching after facing health issues that limited his work. Since he could no longer produce large sculptures, he turned to plasticity of a more contemporary and surprisingly innovative expression and to making medallions, creating works for private collectors, thus somewhat distancing himself from his figurative creativity in a realistic style. The chapter concludes with a presentation of the immense artistic heritage he left in America; consequently, published at the end of the book (pp. 211-228) is the Catalog of Work and Chronology of the life and creative work of the sculptor Turkalj.
Josip Turkalj has received numerous accolades for his work in the USA, Italy and, since the 1990s, in the independent and free Republic of Croatia.
Decorated Cultural Landscapes of America
Among his most famous sculptures in America’s most famous cultural landscapes are Moses, an eighteen-foot-tall bronze figure on the campus of the University of Notre Dame; George Washington, a nine-foot-tall bronze outside the County Courthouse in Buffalo (New York); or perhaps Our Lady of Peace and Our Lady of Bistrica, two seven-foot-tall marble pieces in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. In other words, Turkalj’s works are in public and private collections throughout the United States, Canada, Italy, Croatia and Argentina. His monumental work Immigrant Mother was originally commissioned in Toronto in limestone, while bronze casts and sculptures with the motif of migrant motherhood were installed in Buenos Aires, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and the atrium of the Home of Croatian Emigrants in the heart of the capital of all Croats in Zagreb – the location of the headquarters of the Croatian Heritage Foundation.
At the height of his career in the 1960s and 1970s, his work was exhibited in institutions such as The Detroit Institute of Art (Detroit, Michigan), Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA), South Bend Art Center (South Bend, Indiana), Ball State Teachers College, Ball State University (Muncie, Indiana), National Arts Club (New York), National Sculpture Society (New York), National Academy of Design (New York), Herron Museum of Art (Indianapolis, Indiana), along with several highly frequented religious spaces throughout the metropolises of the North American continent that permanently adorned by the most successful works from the sacral collection of sculptor Joseph Turkalj.
Exciting Biography of a Dissident
In conclusion, the book reveals an exciting biography, the content of which will not leave any reader indifferent due to the courage of a talented young man from the mythical Croatian place of Rakovica – the Partisans liquidated his father for no reason at the end of the Second World War and, at the age of 28 (1952), he decided to embark on his perilous emigrant journey from Italy to America in search of freedom of artistic expression. Turkalj received American citizenship (1964) and decided to change the spelling of his last name from Turkalj to Turkaly, probably because of the political turmoil at the time.
The book can be purchased online from the publisher.
Text: Vesna Kukavica
