User:Benbartek/sandbox

(Tom Bartek has been creating art for over 65 years. Including films, sculpture, pottery, poetry, photography, oil & acrylic paintings, sketches, and silk-screen serigraph works of everyday subjects including still life and landscapes. Born in 1932, the Omaha native attended Creighton University, then after service in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, studied art at Cooper Union Art School in New York City (particularly with Robert Gwathmey). He lived and exhibited in New York and the New England area before returning to Omaha with his family in 1961, where he continued to grow as an artist and worked as exhibition manager at Joslyn Art Museum.
 * Thomas John “Tom” Bartek (28 July 1932 - ) is an American artist born in Omaha, Nebraska.

In 1963 he began teaching painting, first at the Joslyn, then at the College of St. Mary, and finally at Creighton University where he taught painting, drawing, sculpture, art history, and film making until 1974. After working many years in painting and assemblage, he began making serigraphs in 1971 producing 115 editions over the next 14 years. Serigraphy (silk-screening printing) is one method of making fine art original prints for which the artist makes a stencil for each color in the picture.

Extremely close and consistent registration is crucial in the hand printing of the editions. The method should not be confused with mechanical offset reproduction of images based on photos of original paintings. Bartek intended his serigraphs to reach a wide popular audience like the woodcut prints of the great Japanese artists of the 18th and 19th centuries such as Hokusai, Hiroshige and many other ukiyo-e masters.

After 1984, Bartek returned to producing original acrylic and oil paintings and assemblages incorporating drawings, paintings, multiple image photographs, and other medium, in extremely unique works indicative of his maverick view of the world. He continued to exhibit widely throughout the country as well as internationally and from his home studio and gallery in Omaha. ) (Sources http://www.tombartek.com/ http://therumpus.net/2012/09/the-rumpus-interview-with-tom-bartek/ http://www.prairiefirenewspaper.com/2012/09/prairie-populist-omaha-artist-tom-bartek http://omahamagazine.com/articles/tag/tom-bartek/ )