NIKOLAI KASAK

Chronology of Life and Work

1917
Born September 24 in Russia, to Maksim and Paulina, during the family's odyssey from eastern to western Soviet Russia. Baptized in Lushche. In transliteration the Russian spelling of his name is Kazak. 

1929
Kasak's family settled in the western part of the Polesie region of Pinsk. Prior to studying art, Nikolai Kasak considered entering a monastery and dedicating his life to religion and art.

1935
Received a scholarship to study figurative art in Warsaw at the School of Fine and Applied Art, majoring in Mural Painting under Professor Mieczyslaw Schulz. Later he completed graduate study in Vienna and Rome. Kasak holds the BFA, MFA, and ASD degrees.

1938
Won First Prize in the City of Warsaw competition for its emblem "Syrena," sgraffito for the city school buildings. Dr. Slawoj-Skladkowski, Prime Minister of Poland, scholarship (student boarding home), Warsaw.

1939
Taught painting and drawing, Kulisiewicz School of Fine Art, Warsaw. 

1940
Assistant Inspector for public schools, Hancewicze District.

1941
In the spring, while visiting relatives in Leningrad, was trapped by the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Finally managed to board the Leningrad-Odessa Express, reaching Luniniec, a central front-zone city near Pinsk, about thirty-five miles from his home. On the day of his arrival, Kasak was twice miraculously saved from execution in the space of a few short hours, once at the railroad station and then again on a country road. "The first instance occurred when, by mistake, I was seized as a 'spy' by Soviet soldiers amid the confusion following a German air raid on the Luniniec Station, where I had just arrived. Three of my friends were killed in this raid while we were still on the station platform. Here, at the very last moment, I was saved by a man whose sudden appearance and the words 'Stop! Take him to the Chief of NKVD' were the concrete extension of the desire of my instantaneous thought of how I might be saved — I was taken there and, after a body search, was released without harm. "The second event took place less than two hours later on a country road across a totally empty, deathly quiet plain separating the Soviet and German sides. This time I was in the hands of a huge, heavily armed scouting commando lieutenant who was alone and had already executed about sixteen men. Here I was saved (literally at the last split-second) by a strange captain who suddenly appeared, i.e., materialized between us and before our very eyes in a totally inexplicable way. This almost incorporeal, silent, grey, slight figure was totally unarmed but carried the insignia of a captain in the Soviet army. Both the captain's materialization and the lieutenant's sub-sequent question 'What do you order me to do?' were once again the exact realization of my thought and of my instant, effortless desire (perceived only as a flash in my medulla) for a 'captain' — an authority higher than the lieutenant—to manifest himself—this being my only chance for salvation. After the lieutenant's question, the captain turned his head to me, glanced at me and said 'Let him go.' " (During the following years in New York, a number of other mystical episodes were experienced by Kasak.) After crossing the front, Kasak reached his home, now empty, as his parents, a brother and teenage sister Sophia had been deported to the Altai region of the KSSR. Remained in the war-front zone, further experiencing its horrors—for example, he witnessed the surprise and savage execution by Germans, of his sister Maria, her husband and baby. 

1942-43
Lived in Baranowicze, where he taught painting and drawing at the City Art School. Also participated in local exhibitions (at the city Art Museum and at the City Hall), produced some geometric "carpet-designs," and won first prize for a mural painting Ploughman. Two small paintings of his were acquired for the collection of the city Art Museum. Kasak produced four important small "abstract" drawings, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4, and then abstract paintings, some of which he named Sky of Leningrad's White Nights, Entropic Visions of Forms and Lines, Through the Microscope, Black and Colored Spots. Further developed the idea of "Physical Art.

1944
Youngest brother, Ivan, killed by Soviet soldiers.

Lived in Vienna.

1945
After a stay in Vienna arrived to Rome. While pursuing figurative art at the Academy of Rome, worked independently on his own abstract art and on the furthering of his Physical Art system and manifesto. In Rome he was exposed for the first time to the work of Mondrian and Kandinsky and to modern Western art in general. Built his 3-D constructions of Space and Matter titled Action of Positive and Negative Space.

1946
Built first small experimental models of Physical Construction—Positive Space, Negative Space.
Exhibitions: Mostra di Artisti Stranieri, Associazione Artistica Internazionale, Circolo Artistico, Rome: Mostra dell' Autoritratto, St. Bernardo Gallery, Rome.

1945-46
Summarized his philosophy of Physical Art in his short essay-manifestoes called "Physical Art—Action of Positive and Negative." vice-director of Arte (art periodical), Rome.

1945-49
Lived in Rome, exhibiting nationally and internationally.

1949-50
Lived in Fiesole (Florence).

1949
Obtained Fellowship from International Committee for Intellectuals (Zurich) to work in Florence-Fiesole, 1949-1950.

1947-49.
First major showing of Physical Art constructions at the Art Club Exhibitions at the Galleria di Roma, Rome, the National Exhibition at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, and at the First International at the Palazzo Carignano in Turin. In Italy Kasak met with many artists, writers, and critics of the time, including De Chirico, Dorazio, Gallian, Moravia, Prampolini, Rotella, and Silvia Conforto.

1950
Kasak also became involved with the Madi movement of Argentina through Gyula Kosice. It was Piero Dorazio who first sent an image of Kasak’swork to be included in the Madi Magazine. Kosice formally invited Kasak in aletter dated January 25, 1950, to be part of the Madi Movement. After acceptance by Kasak, he showed his work in multiples occasion as part of the Madi Group, worth to mention International Madi Art, Galeria Bonino Buenos Aires, 1957, International Madi, Galerie Denise Rene, Paris 1960 and 15 years of Madi Art, Modern Art Museum of Buenos Aires in 1961.

1951
Departed for the United States (Dallas, Texas). First exhibition of Physical Art in the U.S., Art and Artists, Theater '51, Dallas. Also exhibited in The Thirteenth Annual Texas Painting and Sculpture, Museums of Fine Arts, Dallas, Houston, and Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio.

Departed for New York, where he lived for the remainder of his life. First exhibition of Physical Art there: Loan Exhibition, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

1952
Exhibited at many New York galleries and museums including the Riverside Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, the Betty Parsons Gallery, as well as many other institutions in the United States and abroad. 

1953
Became acquainted with the work of Malevich at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Began to build 3-D Cosmic Circular constructions originally created as drawings and paintings in the early 1940s, such as The Sky of Leningrad's White Nights, The Stars, Constellation, some incorporating electric light and mechanical movement of forms.

1954
Married Janina Maria Poranski.

1955
Joined the American Abstract Artists in New York, and thereafter participated in their exhibitions and publications. During these early American years made the acquaintance of many progressive artists such as Albers, Archipenko, and Calder. While sympathetic to their esthetic concerns, Kasak continued to pursue his own independent philosophy of art.

Son Alexander Nikolas born.

1959
Daughter Christina Maria born.

1968
From the very late 1960s onwards, at the Museum of Modern Art exhibitions in New York, became acquainted with original works or reconstructions by Kobro, Lissitzky, Rodchenko, Starzewski, Strzeminski, Tatlin, and other artists of the Russian and Polish avant-garde. Continued to appreciate the achievements of modern American and European artists, especially those concerned with pure and positive ideas of art inspired by principles of cosmic mechanics, and also "technological" esthetics such as that of G. Rickey. 

1977
Produced the fundamental edition of his life-long, (beginning from very early 1940s) philosophical thought: On Art and Related Matters. 

1977, 1982 and 1985
Papers and photographs acquired by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; the Museum of Modern Art, New York. All material has been microfilmed by the Smithsonian and Museum of Modern Art.

1979-81
Construction included in the Selection from the McCrory Corporation Collection traveling exhibition (USA): "Constructivism and the Geometric Tradition".

1980
Established contact with John E. Bowlt, art historian and a specialist in Russian art of the avant-garde.

1983-84
Three constructions presented at the exhibition "Beyond the Plane: American Constructions 1930-1965," (a selection of twenty-five artists), New Jersey State Museum, Trenton.

1988-92
Kasak's two relief-constructions included in "A Living Tradition: Selection from the American Abstract Artists" (twenty-three artists) international traveling exhibition. Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York. (Cultural presentation of the United States of America.) 

1991
From Action to Dynamic Silence: The Art of Nikolai Kasak published by Charles Schlacks, Jr., Salt Lake City, Utah.Contains previously unpublished material, and includes corrections and clarifications of data in such previous publications as The Art of Kasak (1968). Nikolai Kasak lived and worked in the Riverdale section of New York City in a home of his own design.

1994
Died in New York City.