Emilie Brzezinski
Overview
Cast 1.0
Emilie Brzezinski began her art career in the 1970s working with a variety of media, including resins, latex, and wood fiber. Her expressive themes always related to nature. Eventually, she shifted focus to creating monumental wood sculpture, using a chain saw and ax to carve the towering forms she became known for, that breathed new life into felled trunks.
Born in 1932 in Geneva, Switzerland, Emilie Benes Brzezinski immigrated to the United States and grew up in California. She graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in Art History in 1953. She received a scholarship to Boston Museum School, Massachusetts, in 1954 and completed a one year apprenticeship at Atelier du Feu in 1956. She started her art career in the 1970s with a series of solo shows in Washington, D.C. and New York. Emilie has exhibited in the United States and Eastern Europe, particularly in the Czech Republic where her family is from. In 1961, Emilie married Zbigniew Brzezinski, a foreign policy scholar, political scientist, and National Security Advisor to President Carter. They had three children; Ian, Mark and Mika.
Within the last two decades, Brzezinski has had several gallery and museum installations both in the United States and overseas. Many of her works are in the Czech Republic, the country of her family’s origin. There, “Prague Titans” gazes upon the Vltava River, and a more restrained installation, “Broken Blocks” can be seen in the National Gallery in Prague. In the United States, her bronze “Arch in Flight” stands just two blocks from the White House in front of the Federal Reserve building on New York Avenue, and her most monumental work to date, “Lament”, greets visitors in the front circle of the Kreeger Museum. Outside of the nation’s capital, Brzezinski sculptures can also be found in Chicago at The Society for Arts as well as in New Jersey at the respected Grounds for Sculpture park. Her stoic and silvery Spruce Echoes is in Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, New York, and Emilie’s Cherry Bench II is on loan to the Nada Marie Anid, PhD Art Gallery in the Lincoln Square District in New York City, and is part of a traveling exhibit that will be moving to Anna Maria College this Fall. Emilie’s Sprites, in the original Box Elder wood, was also featured in the Forest of Dreams Exhibit at the acclaimed Meijer Gardens.
Emilie also carved a series of large-scale monumental wood vessel forms which are now available in cast resin and bronze, utilizing the exact forms from Emilie’s original wood carvings.
Understanding the work of Emilie Brzezinski is acknowledging her astute awareness of nature, and her deep respect for the continuity of life. These vessels are metaphors for gathering and celebration but also reflect her keen interest in the transformation of something dead and destroyed into something beautifully preserved that will constantly evolve and change.
"Nature has a grand design, but its manifestations unfold in imperfection and specificity. Respect for this persistent individuality in natural forms is the underpinning of my work."
-Emilie Brzezinski
“I consider my tree forms to be metaphors of humanity and its struggle for survival.” Emilie Brzezinski from the Washington Times in 2005.
Born in 1932 in Geneva, Switzerland, Emilie Benes Brzezinski immigrated to the United States and grew up in California. She graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in Art History in 1953. She received a scholarship to Boston Museum School, Massachusetts, in 1954 and completed a one year apprenticeship at Atelier du Feu in 1956. She started her art career in the 1970s with a series of solo shows in Washington, D.C. and New York. Emilie has exhibited in the United States and Eastern Europe, particularly in the Czech Republic where her family is from. In 1961, Emilie married Zbigniew Brzezinski, a foreign policy scholar, political scientist, and National Security Advisor to President Carter. They had three children; Ian, Mark and Mika.
Within the last two decades, Brzezinski has had several gallery and museum installations both in the United States and overseas. Many of her works are in the Czech Republic, the country of her family’s origin. There, “Prague Titans” gazes upon the Vltava River, and a more restrained installation, “Broken Blocks” can be seen in the National Gallery in Prague. In the United States, her bronze “Arch in Flight” stands just two blocks from the White House in front of the Federal Reserve building on New York Avenue, and her most monumental work to date, “Lament”, greets visitors in the front circle of the Kreeger Museum. Outside of the nation’s capital, Brzezinski sculptures can also be found in Chicago at The Society for Arts as well as in New Jersey at the respected Grounds for Sculpture park. Her stoic and silvery Spruce Echoes is in Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, New York, and Emilie’s Cherry Bench II is on loan to the Nada Marie Anid, PhD Art Gallery in the Lincoln Square District in New York City, and is part of a traveling exhibit that will be moving to Anna Maria College this Fall. Emilie’s Sprites, in the original Box Elder wood, was also featured in the Forest of Dreams Exhibit at the acclaimed Meijer Gardens.
Emilie also carved a series of large-scale monumental wood vessel forms which are now available in cast resin and bronze, utilizing the exact forms from Emilie’s original wood carvings.
Understanding the work of Emilie Brzezinski is acknowledging her astute awareness of nature, and her deep respect for the continuity of life. These vessels are metaphors for gathering and celebration but also reflect her keen interest in the transformation of something dead and destroyed into something beautifully preserved that will constantly evolve and change.
"Nature has a grand design, but its manifestations unfold in imperfection and specificity. Respect for this persistent individuality in natural forms is the underpinning of my work."
-Emilie Brzezinski
“I consider my tree forms to be metaphors of humanity and its struggle for survival.” Emilie Brzezinski from the Washington Times in 2005.
Works
