Courtesy British Museum:

Biography

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Pytlak studied at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art before enrolling at the Art Students League, New York. It was probably here that he was introduced to printmaking. Under the WPA/FAP he produced a mural for the Greenpoint Hospital in Brooklyn. He was a member of the Graphic Arts Division of the New York City WPA/FAP from 1935 to 1941. His lithographs date from the mid-1930s to the early 1940s and showed New York scenes, such as the Bowery and Central Park.

 

In 1938 Pytlak became involved with Anthony Velonis's Silk Screen Unit of the Graphic Arts Division of WPA/FAP, and he played a pioneering role in developing and promoting the screenprint as a fine-art technique. In 1941 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to investigate new techniques in colour lithography and screenprinting. He was a founding member of the National Serigraph Society and was twice elected its president. Some ninety-six screenprints by Pytlak, dated between 1941 and 1949, are listed by Reba and Dave Williams on pages 315-17 of their article 'The Early History of the Screenprint' Print Quarterly, vol. 3, no. 4 (December 1986), pp. 287-21. He contributed a screenprint, They Serve on All Fronts, to the exhibition 'America in the War' organized by Artists for Victory in 1943; his print depicted a medical surgery unit working on the front line and won second prize after Robert Gwathmey in the serigraphy section. During the 1940s Pytlak had several solo shows, including the ACA Gallery in 1942, the Weyhe Gallery in 1944, the US National Museum, Smithsonian Institution, in 1948, and the Serigraph Gallery in 1949. He shared an exhibition of his screenprints with Harry Shokler at Kennedy & Company in 1943.

 

For many years he taught drawing, painting and screenprinting. He ran a private class for disabled students from the New York State Rehabilitation Department during the 1960s. In 1982 the Craft Students League Gallery in New York gave him a retrospective of his printmaking over the past fifty years.

 

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, holds eight prints by him in its collection.

 

"Leonard Pytlak worked for the New York City WPA graphics program from 1934 to 1941. He studied art at the Art Students League and at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art. He was a founding member of the National Serigraphic Society. His work has been collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and others."

Illinois State Museum