“Mending the Sails”

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Beginning nearly 8,000 years ago, when humans first harnessed the winds with sails, they’ve been mending them. Even longer for … Read more Beginning nearly 8,000 years ago, when humans first harnessed the winds with sails, they’ve been mending them. Even longer for fishing nets. We may have glanced at such activity when passing fishing fleet harbors. But with his almost late-Cezanne approach in this work, California artist Victor Czerkas depicted an otherwise tedious task as something worthy of singular focus.
Born in Sioux City, Iowa of Russian immigrant parents, Czerkas moved on to southern California, studying at Los Angeles’ renowned Chouinard Art Institute. Later, he took private painting lessons with Russian-immigrant artist Nicolai Fechin, likely in the latter's Rustic Canyon, Santa Monica studio where he taught small groups, painted and entertained.
While Czerkas was in demand as a graphic designer for motion pictures and television in the 1950s, he simultaneously produced plein-air watercolors and paintings of California’s landscapes and city scenes. But, by the late 1970s the artist’s work found a wider subject range inspired by his travels in Russia, Europe, India, the Orient and the Caribbean. The subject of this painting, however, is universal as well as timeless. See less