Stephen Poleskie

Welcome Biography Works Excerpts News & Old Discussion Etc. Archives

THROUGHOUT THE CENTURIES, man has considered himself beautiful. I rather suppose that man only believes in his own beauty out of pride; that he is not really beautiful and he suspects this himself; for why does he look on the face of his fellow-man with such scorn?

~Comte de Lautreamont, Les Chants de Maldoror

***

Stephen Poleskie, age 5. WWII was going on and his father was away in the army, hence the T-shirt

Everhart Museum Poster January 1958 (enlarge)

Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA, exhibition, January 1958 (enlarge)

"Thorn Bush" welded steel, 1957, destroyed, (enlarge)

Commercial Art 1958 - 60

One of a series of package designs Poleskie did for American Party Favor Company in 1960

A pen and ink illustration by Steve Poleskie from 1958 recenty uncovered in a folder in his garage. He cannot remember who or what it was made for. (enlarge)

Steve Poleskie on his Vespa motorscooter, Pringle, PA, June, 1959 (enlarge)

Steve Poleskie, self-portrait, 3.5"X5", screen-print and drawing, 1963

"Maine Seascape," oil/board, 5"X6" 1964

"Undressing" oil/canvas, 7.5" 1963

Richard Anuszkiewicz and Steve Poleskie at Chiron Press, 1964

Steve takes a student for a ride. Ogunquit School of Art, Maine, summer 1967.

Poleskie on his BMW R69US, 1969

Steve Poleskie and Michael Baum at Cornell, 1972 (enlarge)

Poleskie with a large painting in his Ithaca studio, ca 1972

Poleskie at the Santos DuMont Memorial in Brazil. Dumont was an aviation pioneer. 1985. (enlarge)

Card for Brazil performance event, 1985

Steve Poleskie in his office at Cornell in front of posters from some of his exhibitions. ca 1992 (enlarge)

Poster for Munich exhibition, October 1987

Steve Poleskie in front of The State Museum in Lodz, Poland, just before the opening of his show there, 1987. (enlarge)

British poet Simon Lappington and Steve Poleskie, Mt. Snowdon, Wales, 1988. (enlarge)

Mailer for an exhibition at the Art and Culture Center, Hollywood, FL., May-June 1989. (enlarge)

MIT Sky Art Conference

Aerial Theater performance over Boston, MA, 1992 (enlarge)

Some Things from the Archives

Click on blue captions to enlarge photo.

Jeanne Mackin, Paul West, and Diane Ackerman study Steve's drawings during his exhibition at the Glenn Curtis Museum in Hammondsport, 1990, (enlarge)

Poleskie working on a large figurative painting at his 76 Jefferson Street studio, ca 1964, photo by Eddie Johnson

Steve Poleskie pushes the squeegee at Chiron Press, 1967, photo by Peter Moore

Steve Poleskie demonstrating screen printing, Pratt Graphic Arts Center, NYC, December 1965. (enlarge)

Steve gets a jump on his competitor. During the summer of 1966 Poleskie drag raced his motorcycle at New York National Speedway in Center Moriches, LI. He was undefeated in the E Modified Class. (enlarge)

School of Visual Arts magazine with Poleskie on front cover. April, 1968 (enlarge to read)

Poleskie's first published story, in Straight, a magazine from the School of Visual Arts, N YC, 1968. (enlarge to read)

Poleskie and his 1965 Turner GT, Chiron Press was doing well! photo by Kathryn Hahner (enlarge)

Poleskie exhibition, Printer's Gallery, Ithaca, NY, ca 1973 (enlarge)

The Painted Wing

The painted wing on Steve Poleskie's biplane, 1973

"The Wing" in a show that traveled to several university art galleries in Pennsylvania. (enlarge)

Steve Poleskie's "Painted Wing" was exhibited widely. It is presently in the collection of the Caproni Museum in Trento, Italy. (enlarge)

The Wing in Poleskie's exhibition at the Freeman Gallery, Reading, PA, 1985 (enlarge)

Steve stands in front of his Wing during the opening of his exhibition at Gallery Schneider, Rome, Italy, 1987

The wing in Poleskie exhibition at the John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, UK , February to April, 1989

Steve Poleskie flies his Pitts Special past the Empire State Building, October, 1981 (enlarge)

Poleskie performs an Aerial Theater piece over Manhattan in his Piper Apache, ca 1987, photo by Robert Jessup

Steve Poleskie in his Pitts Special performing for the cameras over Mecklenburg, NY, 1985, photo by Gordon Goodban

Some of Poleskie's Airplanes

Steve Poleskie with his first airplane, a Citabria 7ECA, Tompkins County Airport, 1972

Steve Poleskie with his second airplane, a Bellanca Decathlon, ca 1973

Poleskie's wife, Jeanne Mackin, peeks out the window of his fourth airplane, a Cessna 177, Cardinal (enlarge)

Steve Poleskie with his Pitts Special and Piper Apache, his third and fifth airplanes, ca 1989, (enlarge)

Early Poleskie Photographs

"Sierra Leone Shop Window," 8"X10" B&W photo, 1972

"Sierra Leone Tap Tap" 8"X10" B&W photo, 1972, (enlarge)

"Sierra Leone, Lungi Beach," B&W photo, 8"X10" 1972 (enlarge)

In 1979 Poleskie flew his Piper Apache to Haiti. Here is a photo he took while flying over the Citidal.

Selected Works

Novels

Vigilia's Tempest
A well-known American stunt pilot, and university professor, meets a strange old man named Caliban who tells him the story of his twin brother who as a young boy flew with Charles Lindbergh as his secret copilot on his famous solo trans-Atlantic flight.

The Balloonist, The Story of T.S.C. Lowe, Inventor, Scientist, Magician, and Father of the U.S. Air Force.
Thaddeus Sobieski Coulincourt Lowe (1823−1913) was called by Carl Sandburg "the most shot-at man of the Civil War."

The Third Candidate
An unemployed actor answers an ad for a rent-free apartment and finds himself involved in a bizarre scheme to rig an election.

Novel in Stories

Grater Life
A collection of short stories, interwoven into a dialog between a volunteer hospital visitor and a patient afflicted with AIDS.

Selected Short Stories

Aristotle Thinking
This story appeared in Essays & Fictions, Summer 2010, and in Fiction Daily

My Son the Philosopher
A short story that appeared in SATIRE magazine in 1997

Marta's White Painting
A story that appeared in Imago, the Australian literary magazine

Cemetery Watcher
A short story published in the Sulphur River Literary Review, Austin, TX

Fishkill
A short story in the Print Annual of Many Mountains Moving, a Literary Journal, 2008-9, nominated for a Pushcart Prize

Victory Parade
A short story published in Wordwrights, a literary magazine from Washington, D. C.