Teresa Reklewska - stained glass artist

 

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Teresa Maria Reklewska is a 1956 graduate of Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where she studied weaving techniques and painting.The two following years she studied at National School of Art in Paris in Souverbie Atelier and Atelier d'Art Sacre owned by noted French glassmaker Jacques Le Chevallier (1896 - 1987). Till 1972 she worked in his studio, accomplishing her own artistic projects and stained glass pieces (250 m2). During her stay in France, she won the international contest for stained glass windows to Gothic Cathedral of St. Mary on Sand in Wrocław. She executed those windows in Chevallier's studio. In 1976 she was awarded the St. Albert prize in sacral art.

After coming back to Poland she decided to set up her own company. Since the Poland was under communist rule she had to overcome many difficulties but finally, in 1975, she opened her own Studio in Warsaw. It was a forerunner among the stained glass studios due to its special approach to creating process, which abolished the distinction between conceptual phase and the execution. The artists are involved in every little phase of creation.

Thereafter she lives and works in Poland. She educated many stained glass artists. The most talented among them: Tomasz Tuszko, Pawel Przyrowski, Jerzy Owsiak (8 years of education and cooperation). She shared her drawing and composition knowledge with Tomasz Laczynski and Malgorzata Laczynska.

 

About herself:

"My experiences with weaving gave me a certitude that creative ideas are arising in artist's workshop. That the final work of art is inspired by the material you work with. In stained glass studio I've learned that the delight of glass color and structure gives impetus to monumental compositions. And humans obligation is to put a maximum of their efforts and creativity in every single phase of creating stained glass piece. I divide a creation of stained glass into four subsequents stages: First one - the project which is just an artistic painterly vision/ impression. Then, a rich lead pattern - a rigorous and strict layer of the whole design. The choice of the specific glass elements is determined by intuition and experience. Last phase is painting the colored glass with metal oxides, which is an art of shadowing some parts of the stained glass piece in order to achieve richer tones and intensity. That four phases imposed one on another result in the desired final effect, to which the artist is constantly approaching, step by step. In this manner of creating, the distinction between artist and manufacturer vanishes. "

 

 

TERESA MARIA REKLEWSKA'S WORKS:

Stained glass works executed in Jacques le Chevalier's studio in Paris:

  • St. Martin's church in Warszawa (1960-1961), 10 m2
  • St Mary on the Sand Church, Wroclaw (1964-1966), 192 m2, 17 meters high
  • Swimming pool, Ascona (Switzerland 1966), dalle de verre;12 m2

 

Stained glass works executed in Warsaw:

  • St Margerita's Church, Nowy Sacz, (1976-1981), 250 m2;
  • Virgin Mary's of Czestochowa Church, Katy Korytnickie, (1979-1981);
  • St Wojciech Church, Wroclaw,(1981-1983), 102 m2;
  • St Mary's Church, Anin, (1983, 1992), 25 m2;
  • St Andrew Bobola's Sanctuary, Warsaw, (1984-1991), 365 m2;
  • Commercial College Shiba, Tokio, Japan, (1993-95), stained glass 40 m2, mosaics 55 m2;
  • Police Headquaters in Kumagaya, Japan, (1995-1996), 35 m2;
  • St. Francis Xavier Church, Kanda, Tokyo, Japan (1996).
  • Ortodox Church in Warsaw, (2012);