Tom Bartek

Tom Bartek has been making art for over 65 years. Born in 1932, the Omaha native attended Creighton University, then after service in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, studied art at Cooper Union Art School in New York City (particularly with Robert Gwathmey). He lived and exhibited in New York and Connecticut before returning to Omaha with his wife Gloria and their four sons in 1961, where he worked as exhibition manager at Joslyn Art Museum.
In 1963 he began teaching painting, first at the Joslyn, then at the College of St. Mary, and finally at Creighton University where he taught painting, drawing, sculpture, art history, and film making until 1974. After working many years in painting and assemblage, he began making serigraphs in 1971 producing 115 editions over the next 14 years. Serigraphy (silkscreening printing) is one method of making fine art original prints for which the artist makes a stencil for each color in the picture. Extremely close and consistent registration is crucial in the hand printing of the editions. The method should not be confused with mechanical offset reproduction of images based on photos of original paintings. Bartek intended his serigraphs to reach a wide popular audience like the woodcut prints of the great Japanese artists of the 18th and 19th centuries such as Hokusai, Hiroshige and many other ukiyo-e masters. His serigraphs were widely distributed nationally by Ferdinand Roten Galleries, Berentanos, and MacMillian Publishing.
After 1984 Bartek produced acrylic paintings and many assemblages, some incorporating drawings, paintings or multiple image photographs, but no more serigraphs. He has exhibited widely throughout the country as well as in a large solo exhibit in Mexico City at the Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano de Relaciones Culturales in 1965. His career culminated in a three venue retrospective in 2012 with paintings at Creighton University's Lied Gallery; assemblages and sculpture at University of Nebraska at Omaha Gallery; and serigraphs at the Nebraska Arts Council Fred Simon Gallery.