Monika Kurkowska was born on May 4, 1878, in Poland.[2][3] She was one of twelve children brought to the United States in 1881 on board the liner, Strassburg, by her parents Franciszek, a wood carver, and Katarzyna Kurkowski. They changed their surname to "Kurk" after arriving in the United States. They were originally from the German partition of Poland. The family became members of the St. Stanislaus Polish parish where Monika attended its elementary school. She went on to the Academy of Our Lady before she left home to study with count Tadeusz Żukotyński in Munich. Żukotyński, an artist born in Poland, taught Stanisia to paint religious art, including murals.[3]
Early career
She returned to the United States in 1893 and three years later, following a religious calling she had felt since she was a young girl, she moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and entered the School Sisters of Notre Dame under a new religious name, Mary Stanisia. She spent the next three years in the novitiate of the religious congregation. In March 1899, Sister Mary Stanisia took her Final vows at St. Mary's in Michigan City, Indiana.[3] In the same year she painted The Sacred Heart of Jesus, her first known painting.[3]
Stanisia taught art at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy in Marinette, Wisconsin, and gave private art lessons beginning that fall. She taught there until 1905, when she was assigned to St. Mary's Academy in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where she spent the next two years.[3] In 1907, Sister Stanisia was assigned to the Academy of Our Lady in Chicago, where she had studied as a girl. She established an art studio, large enough to create murals, and became director of the school's Fine Arts program.[3]
While Stanisia was studying art, she was also pursuing her education in philosophy. She graduated from DePaul University in 1922 with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree.[3]
Career
As a mature artist Stanisia painted commissions for portraits, murals, and religious-themed works.[1] She painted a large central panel for an altarpiece at the Basilica of St. Hyacinth, based upon a work designed by Zukotynski there. It is perhaps the earliest large panel of her career.[3] She also did works for the Churches of St. Stanislaus Kostka and Holy Cross in Chicago, which are built in the so-called Polish Cathedral style.[4]
In 1926, she exhibited four paintings at the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago, which was held to promote of Catholic Eucharistic art. The exposure resulted a significant increase in commissions.[3] Around 1926 Stanisia completed a Stations of the Cross cycle on the South Side of Chicago for St. Margaret of Scotland Church. She created about fifty works of art, including portraits and murals, over the next four years.[3]
In 1929 she established an art department at Mount Mary College, part of her congregation in Milwaukee, while continuing to direct the program in Chicago. She established the Art Guild of Chicago the following year, based at Longwood.[5]
Stanisia was one of many nuns who were able to integrate their spiritual life with their artistic practice. This resulted in the creation of a purely American Catholic art, with its own icons and style.[7]
Her work was exhibited in 1925 at the Eucharistic Congress.[1] In 1930, her work was exhibited at the Gallery of Wisconsin Art held by The Milwaukee Journal.[8] She won a silver medal at The Warsaw International Fair of 1932. In 1935, her work was shown in Evanston, Illinois at the Davis Galleries.[1]
Death
She died on January 28, 1967, in Elm Grove, Wisconsin, after a brief spell in the Notre Dame Infirmary.[1][2]
^ abcdefghijklmn"Stations of the Cross - History". Chicago, Illinois: St. Margaret of Scotland Parish. Retrieved October 20, 2014. Taken with author's permission from Robert Cozzolino (2001). "Sister Mary Stanisia". Women Building Chicago 1790-1990: A Biographical Dictionary. Bloomington: Indiana: University Press. pp. 833–836.
^Williams, Peter W., "Houses of God: Region, Religion, and Architecture in the United States" pp. 157, 179–180 University of Illinois Press; Reprint edition (2000)
^Cozzolino, Robert (2001). Women Building Chicago 1790-1990: A Biographical Dictionary "Sister Mary Stanisia". Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. pp. 833–836.