Biography from AskART:
| The family of Antoni Milkowski has approved the following biography:
ANTONI MILKOWSKI
(1935 - 2001)
Minimalist sculptor and Hunter College professor Antoni Milkowski was born on October 7, 1935 in Evanston, Illinois to Anthony and Edna Keeney Milkowski.
While still an infant he traveled to Poland with his mother. Ultimately the
Milkowski family settled in New York City and their son attended the Rudolf
Steiner Preschool and the Steiner Boarding School in Pennsylvania where he
was first exposed to wood-working.
In the year 1942, Milkowski began his studies of wood carving and clay modeling at New York's Steiner School. His uncle Victor Adams, a sculptor, was an early influence on the very young Milkowski who was readily consumed by an innate artistic curiosity.
Milkowski attended both the Indian Mountain School in Lakeville, Connecticut,
and the Millbrook School in Millbrook, New York, and ultimately graduated
from New York's Tutoring School in 1953. Four years later he received his
bachelor's degree in biology from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.
The year following his college graduation Milkowski entertained the idea of a
career in medicine but decided against it. Instead he enlisted in the Marine
Corps where he served as a first lieutenant until the time of his 1961
discharge. In 1964, Milkowski was awarded a Fulbright grant to study abroad in Warsaw, where he worked and lectured at the city's Art Academy. The
artist's first significant large-scale public sculpture, "Poland Column," was
constructed for the Polish city of Elblag in 1965.
When Milkowski returned to New York he assumed a position on the faculty of
Hunter College, where he taught from 1966 - 1998. Throughout the trajectory
of his artistic career, Milkowski's work evolved from forms of simplicity to
those which imply a more laborious means of creation and viewing. The 1999
Hunter College exhibit "Set in Steel" exemplified the progression of
Milkowski's artistic vision, spanning the decades of his association with
Hunter. The exhibit, according to "The New York Times" art critic Grace
Glueck, reveals the influence of Milkowski's colleague Tony Smith on his
oeuvre (1999).
"Milkowski's work was primarily geometric and angular in design and consistently demonstrated a sensitivity to the nuances of both the
interior space of the composition and the environment in which it was
situated" (Glueck, 1999). Although the pieces in "Set in Steel" were created
from tactile, tangible materials, the mature complexity of Milkowski's later
work suggested an elusive, ethereal quality even amidst heavy material
substance.
Submitted by Gayle M. Skluzacek, AAA, an appraiser and college professor
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