Reformátusok Lapja, 1969 (69. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1969-01-01 / 1. szám
12 A Visit with Stevan Dohanos REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA To realist Stevan Dohanos, a telephone pole, a mailman, a fireplug are more than ordinary sights. When he paints them in his pictures he endows them witli a startling, sensitive magic that makes them tell entire stories to the millions who see and admire his work. His paintings of the “commonplace” objects in our daily lives can be found in the permanent art collections of more than a dozen museums. Colleagues and art editors regard Stevan Dohanos as one of the foremost interpreters of the American scene. He is a nationally known illustrator and magazine cover artist, perhaps best known for his more than 125 covers for the Saturday Evening Post interpreting contemporary American life. He pursues a combination career in the fine arts and the commercial arts field. His many works show that, proud as he is of his Hungarian descent, he deeply appreciates America and is a man of genuine patriotism. The numerous postage stamps he has designed for the United States Post Office reflect that spirit in their beauty and color, in the waving pattern of the Stars and Stripes, and in the recent Kennedy stamp. During a recent visit with Steve, I asked him to tell me something about his youth in Ohio, his family, his church and how he got started as an artist. He obliged me and I want to share his story with others. “To begin my story,” Steve said, “I am a first generation American. Both my parents were born in Hungary and married over here. I was the third of nine children, horn in the steel mill town of Lorain, Ohio, in 1907. My father worked in the mills and we lived in one of the company houses, like all the rest of the immigrant laborers’ families. “It might make a more interesting story,” Steve said, “if I could say that my childhood was unhappy; that I was oversensitive and suffered from my surroundings and that, as a result of my frustrations, I decided at a tender age, to become a great American artist, hut it wouldn’t he true. As a child, I was neither acutely happy nor acutely miserable; nor did I give evidence of any great precociousness or talent. “Our family life was unspectacular. My mother was too busy bearing us, keeping us fed and clothed on the $28 a week my father earned, to have time for sentiment. We ate well enough; dinner was usually a rich stew, served on a checked cloth in the kitchen of our two story frame house. We were kept clean and warm and as soon as we were old enough—in my case, before Artist and illustrator, Stevan Dohanos, in his studio. I was 12—we were expected to work after school hours and contribute our earnings to the family budget. Like many other young Americans, I earned my first pennies selling papers. When I became twelve, I worked before and after school in a grocery store; summers I helped harvest crops on nearby farms. At fourteen, I thought 1 had had enough education and tried to quit school hut the truant officers yanked me back and I stayed on till my sixteenth birthday. This happened to be in May and without waiting till the term ended, in June, I took my first full time job; as driver of a delivery truck for a flower shop,” Stevan Dohanos recalled. “What little social activity we enjoyed was centered around our local Hungarian Reformed Church groups. At about this time, a dramatic coach came to town to direct and produce folk plays for our church. It was my first taste of creative activity, making me aware that life might offer something more than the purely utilitarian. For the next few years,” Steve explained, “I lived for these extra-curricular hours I spent with this discriminating Hungarian, who had not onlv singled me out to act, hut had chosen me as a companion and friend to whom he talked not only of the theatre, but of art and music and literature. The bright world of the imagination in which he lived, opened its doors to me and from that day on, I knew I would never be content until it was my world, too.” His eyes looking into the distance, Steve said, “I
