T. Julian Baksik — 8/8/70
In the land where Henry Ford’s dream rose to redefine manufacturing, one man hopes to change the face and figure of art in the modern world. From his tree encircled plot of old farmland in suburban Detroit, Tomak Julian Baksik is creating sculptures that rival the greatest works of the old cities of Europe.
The second of four children born into a Polish immigrant family, T. Julian was inspired by treks with his family to Switzerland, Germany, France, and England, but it was Italy that fueled his love of monumental sculpture. From Trieste to Rome, he gazed on the works of Bernini, Borromini, and Michelangelo, and witnessed for himself the glory of the classical Roman world, the portrayal of mythology and humanism on a grand scale.
When T. Julian returned to the United States, he discovered not only a paucity of inspirational sculpture, but observed a hunger for it in the visitors to the great American museums. He saw that patrons traveling to the Metropolitan did not get their pictures taken with the modern pieces, but with the lions that adorned the front steps, and watched as they pointed in awe to the miserichords in DC’s National cathedral, and flocked to stand in the gothic grandeur of New York’s Church of St. John the Divine.
Immediately the course of his life was clear: In his third year as an Art/Physics Major at the University of Michigan, T. Julian left to become full time artist. He spent 15 years successfully on the art fair circuit, but always felt the pull of monumental works drawing him. His works show the influence of both the Renaissance masters and the more free-flowing Pre-Raphaelites.
Striding purposefully each dawn towards his studio, Julian often feels that there are not enough hours in the day to create the art he sees in his mind, and his drive can lead him to spend 18 hour days forming over-life-size figures of muses and mythological figures.
Self styled as a slave to his art, Julian has pursued a broad spectrum of disciplines on his path, eschewing the traditional role of apprentice to experiment in a wide variety of media in order to make his art more accessible to modern collectors. “Whereas a powerful Renaissance patron might support an artist for life in order to commission great works for a city, those days ended with the post-war society, spawning a movement toward civic art in abstract industrial forms that were more easily affordable. By creating monumental sculpture using modern casting methods and materials, we can return to splendid and beautiful art,” explains Julian, whose notable works include an over-life-size Baroque Roman fountain, featuring Minerva and Neptune, and a series of bronze female allegorical figures.
T. Julian’s focus as a sculptor has traced a broad arc through diverse media: bronze, glass, marble, pewter, copper, wood, steel, stoneware, and fiberglass. He has created novelty media sculptures in chocolate and even one in thermite for pyrotechnic performance art. This experience allows him thorough understanding of the limits and possibilities of each medium, and he uses this knowledge to mentor fledgling sculptors in their pursuit of their craft.
Collectors of representational art are often limited by scale to the “tabletop” bronze, the sculpture sized to fit the living room or office, but Julian sees a different vision: “As more and more people return to the legacy house, large halls and grounds built for entertaining, and a desire for grandeur, the interest in sculpture of this type is growing strong.”
And so, in the fading shadows of the Motor City, massive fountains send their liquid tribute to the sky from the hands of figures of ancient mythology, bronze muses turn their eyes to the horizon, and T. Julian Baksik labors to capture the imagination of the modern world with heroic art.