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Man Carving His Own Destiny

 - Albin Polasek
Escultura (EXTERIOR)

Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Gardens

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Albin Polasek's signature piece recreated at the age of 82. Reminiscent of Michelangelo's series of Slave sculptures, Polasek showed a man carving his own life from a piece of stone. Considered Albin Polasek's signature piece, Man Carving his Own Destiny, was first created while Polasek studied under Charles Grafly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1907. Reminiscent of Michelangelo's series of Slaves, all were struck by the fact that a sculptural image as obvious as a man chiseling himself out of stone had not been seen quite that way before. Polasek sculpted 53 different variations of this sculpture throughout his lifetime for the public eye and private collections. The version in the Salon is the 1920 plaster. The various versions display differences in arm positions, the look of the hair, and how much body is emerged from the rock. "I am like a piece of rock which has been broken off of the Carpathian Mountains in the heart of Czechoslovakia. Later this crude stone was transported to the Land of the Free: the United States of America. This block of stone was myself. Through the opportunities that this country gave me, I started to carve out my destiny, to free myself from the rock so that I might be useful. No one knows the deep gratitude I feel for all that I have received. So if, as an immigrant, I have been able to contribute to some small part of American life, I know that I owe it to the opportunities this country opened to me." --Albin Polasek, excerpt taken from a speech given to the National Institute of Immigrant Welfare, April, 1939.

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Albin Polasek
Albin Polasek es anunciado como uno de los escultores más destacados de los Estados Unidos del siglo XX. Nació en Frenstat, Moravia (actualmente República Checa), y a los veintidós años emigró a los Estados Unidos. Asistió a la Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts y se capacitó formalmente con Charles Grafly. En la competencia Prix de Rome de 1910, obtuvo una beca por tres años en American Academy of Art in Rome. A los treinta y siete años presidió el Departamento de Escultura del Art Institute of Chicago. En 1927, fue elegido como miembro adjunto de la Academia Nacional de Diseño y en 1933 fue consagrado como académico. A los 71, Polasek se retiró a Winter Park, Florida, cerca del pintoresco Lake Osceola, actual ubicación del Museo Albin Polasek. Unos meses más tarde, sus dotes artísticos se vieron drásticamente reducidos debido a un derrame cerebral. Aunque con esmero y determinación, siguió adelante y realizó dieciocho importantes obras de arte. Durante su vida, Albin Polasek creó más de cuatrocientas obras de arte, dejando atrás el legado de un "hombre forjando su propio destino".