Double vision: Twins share chemistry but their art goes different ways

Imagine if, before you could brush your teeth, you had to grind and mix silica, sodium bicarbonate, titanium dioxide and other ingredients into a paste. After you had the right consistency, the brushing would be an easy matter. Modern industry and chemistry has long allowed us to simply squeeze our toothpaste from a tube, and it has given artists the convenience of preparing their palettes in a similar manner. But for an artist, the greatest challenge still looms at the end of the brush.

So, why would anyone want to return to the methods of the Old Masters, and prepare their oil paints from raw ground pigments mulled on a glass or marble palette? "Because by grinding your own paints, it allows richer color with no additives and it gives very luminous strokes," said James M. Sulkowski, 45, a Canonsburg native and award-winning artist and sculptor.

James Sulkowski is known for his florals. He also paints landscapes and figures.

Sulkowski shares his enthusiasm for paint-grinding with his twin brother, Joseph, who has lived in Nashville, Tenn., since 1981, uses the same technique and is equally successful as a painter.

There is some difference in their work, however. James is best known for his florals, still lifes and Civil War-theme paintings, bronzes depicting operatic characters and small sculptures of nudes, while Joseph paints sporting motifs and portraits of champion dogs and expensive horses.

For his work in Canonsburg, Sulkowski obtains his raw pigments through a New York dealer who procures them from their original European sources. He prepares his raw linen canvas in a centuries-old method using three coats of rabbit-skin glue, which he then primes with two layers of a German-made lead white.

As carrier for his pigments, he uses cold-pressed linseed oil thickened in a lead pan placed in the sun, and another medium prepared by a New York "eccentric" according to a secret recipe that includes genuine amber. And the final varnish for his paintings is made from Damar crystals dissolved in the finest English distilled turpentine.

The tandem artists are the sons of Josephine and Robert Sulkowski and their father continues his half-century of dental practice in Canonsburg at the age of 80. Their father would have liked to have been a sculptor, but was forbidden to do so by his father, he said. Their mother encouraged the boys to draw and their father provided some instruction in oil painting when they were 10 years old.

When James sent away for information on an art correspondence course at the age of 10, he was ineligible to enroll - the minimum age was 18. However, when a representative called at their home and was shown drawings by the twins, he broke policy and signed them up. After completing the four-year course, they began to enroll artwork in local shows and as teen-agers completed a mural at the Polish National Church in Canonsburg. (The mural survives and James said it used to embarrass him, but he has since gotten used to it.)

The budding artists then attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia for two years, transferred to Carnegie Mellon University in Oakland and then went to New York to study with master painter Frank Mason at the Art Students League of New York. They had their own studio in New York City for 22 years. "I left because the quality of life in that city just wasn't very good," James said. "It takes more out of you than it gives back."

The primary reward of the New York experience was the education they received under Mason, who taught them the classical techniques of the Old Masters, and made sure they gained in the school of hard knocks. "We pounded the pavement, but no gallery would take paintings," James said. "They all wanted to know where we had shown before, and we began to say `at the Van Dyke Gallery' - that was the name of the building where we had our studio."

That was thousands of brush strokes ago. The list of accolades and awards for both of them is voluminous. In 1979, they were commissioned by the Saudi Arabian government to paint two 5-foot-by-12-foot murals depicting the "Scientific and Mathematical Achievements" of the Saudis and "The Ikhwan Revolt of 1929." Both hang in the King Abdul Aziz Naval Museum in Jedda.

The list of private and public collections that include their work reads like a "Who's Who," and in 1989, James attended a White House reception with Elsie Hillman of Pittsburgh, where his painting "Memorial Day" was presented to President and Mrs. Bush; it now hangs in the Bush Presidential Library in Texas.

One of the most meaningful recent awards came this year when his oil still-life "Black Onyx and Crimson" was selected from 150 paintings by 60 nationally known artists for the People's Choice Award at the "Art in the Mountains" benefit held at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Farmington, Fayette County. Earlier this decade, "Artspeak," a monthly gallery review, wrote of them: "They have been earning their living for many years by painting and have established an enviable reputation for art of the highest quality."

So enviable that they are an inspiration for students of the arts. After a decade of teaching for the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts in Shadyside and the Sweetwater Arts Center in Sewickley, James opened the Sulkowski Academy of Fine Arts in Houston (near Canonsburg), where he has about 30 students ranging in age from 10 to 84, and he maintains his own studio in Canonsburg.

His oils are priced from $850 to $25,000, with an average range of $3,000 to $6,000 (although a framed photocopy of a check to him from a well-known patron of the arts in the amount of $60,000 hangs in a discrete corner of his studio). "I paint because I have to," James said. "I wouldn't be happy unless I could. Nature is what inspires me. If I paint a peach, I try to paint the character of the peach as much as I would the character of somebody's face. It isn't just superficial."

He emulates the classic masters ranging from Rembrandt van Rijn to James McNeill Whistler, and said his goal is to paint landscapes as well as Thomas Moran. Soft-spoken and seemingly devoid of an artist's ego, he remains passionate about art. "I think everyone needs art because it enhances their life, " he said. "If somebody is laying out a city or designing a car, they are going to do a better job if they've been exposed to art. If every kid studies art in school, it is going to help them think more creatively."

He and his wife, Sherri, encourage their son Ian, 7, and daughter Monet, 9, to pursue their skills. Monet shows writing talent and Ian "will be the next generation's artist," their father said. "That's all he does is draw, and he said at age 3 that he wanted to be an artist."

His teen-age nephew and namesake, James, son of brother Joseph, already is drawing cartoons and hopes to work in animation. Busy individual careers and distance prevent much collaboration between the twin artists, but they discuss art by phone on almost a daily basis. Their last joint project was a large, round, allegorical painting "The Hero's Quest," which was unveiled at the National Arts Club in New York City.

Most artists would shudder at the idea of working together, but James said he and his twin are never competitive. In the event of a disagreement when they work together, "we just talk one another into it."

But during their collaboration on the Arabian paintings, James said, "We hardly talked, we just did them. We were on one wavelength."

Nobody has ever defined "art" to anyone else's satisfaction, but the individual styles of the Sulkowskis are in perfect classical harmony and are a rarity applauded by many. In these days of "installations" that dump junk on museum floors and artistic egos more imaginative than the artwork, James and Joseph occupy a successful, elegant niche.

James Sulkowski's work can be viewed by appointment at his gallery at 6 East Pike St., Canonsburg. For information, call 746-1573. The Sulkowski Academy of Fine Arts is at 10 Cherry Ave. and Pike Street, Houston, and offers classes on a monthly basis. For details, call 746-4119.

Double vision: Twins share chemistry but their art goes different ways

Joseph Sulkowski primarily paints traditional images of championship dogs and horses.

James Sulkowski is known for his florals. He also paints landscapes and figures.