Master metalsmith
Cyril Colnik (1871–1958) was an Austrian-born artist who parlayed
a gold medal at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago
into a sixty-year career creating marvelously intricate gates, balustrades,
chandeliers, grilles, architectural ornaments, and other decor for
public buildings and the mansions of the wealthy in the “German
Athens” of America—Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Legend has it
that beer baron Captain Frederick Pabst convinced Colnik to come to
Milwaukee, pointing to the commissions the talented craftsman could
get from wealthy industrialists and merchants. Colnik’s artistry
and technical mastery transformed metal into works of beauty and permanence
for clients including Pabst, Charles Allis of Allis-Chalmers Inc.,
Herman Uihlein of Schlitz Brewing Co., Lloyd Smith of the A. O. Smith
Corporation, and many others. Colnik’s creations in iron, brass,
and bronze can still be seen at the Pabst Mansion house museum, Milwaukee’s
City Hall, Mader’s Restaurant, Wisconsin Memorial Park, and in
many other older buildings around the city. The largest collection
is in Milwaukee’s Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum (formerly
the mansion of the Smith family), where visitors can see both the
wrought metalwork that Colnik created for the Smith home and a permanent
exhibition of objects, photographs, and archival material by and about
Colnik. The exhibition includes the tools of a blacksmith shop, complete
with forge and anvil.
Cyril Colnik,
Man of Iron is the first book to document this metalsmith’s
masterworks. It includes a biographical essay on Colnik and chapters
that showcase the riches of the Villa Terrace’s Colnik collection
and archives: photos of architectural features and collected objects
at the Villa Terrace; examples of Colnik’s sketches, blueprints,
and photographs; a trove of photos from Colnik’s personal collection
that documented his work in now-unidentified homes and churches; and
interior and exterior photographs of identifiable Milwaukee homes,
businesses, and public buildings taken by Colnik, author Alan J. Strekow,
and others. The book also includes an essay by present-day artisanal
ironworker Daniel Nauman, a glossary of blacksmithing terms, a chronology
of Colnik’s life and achievements, and a bibliography.
200
pages, Hardcover, Full Color, 9" x 11", © 2011
Order Number: CB9210............$45.00
