Powel Paul Kontny Oil Southwest Adobe

A painter of subjects from many parts of the world, Pawel Kontny began with wartime sketches and changed to a technique combining abstraction and realism. He was born in Laurahuette, Poland, the son of a wealthy pastry shop owner. He studied architecture, but was interrupted by World War II. Traveling in many countries as a soldier, he sketched various landscapes but in 1945, he was captured and held as a prisoner of war in Italy. After the war, he studied at the Union of Nuremberg Architects to help design buildings to replace ones destroyed in the war. He also married Irmgard, a dancer with the Nuremberg Opera Company and began having well received exhibitions of his work throughout Europe. His primary subject became architecture which he built up on heavy weight masonite panels into structures with marble dust. In 1969, the Kotnys moved to Denver, Colorado where he began painting the American West. In February, 1974, "American Artist" magazine had a feature article by John Jellico on Pawel Kontny.