Иэн Хорнак: Художник-фотореалист и пейзажист

American painter

Ian Hornak (January 9, 1944 – December 9, 2002) was an American draughtsman, painter and printmaker. He was one of the founding artists of the Hyperrealist and Photorealist fine art movements; credited with having been the first Photorealist artist to incorporate the effect of multiple exposure photography into his landscape paintings; and the first contemporary artist to entirely expand the imagery of his primary paintings onto the frames.

Ian Hornak was born on January 9, 1944, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Slovakian immigrants, Frank and Rose Hornak (née Vagich). Following Hornak’s birth, the family relocated to Brooklyn Heights, New York, where his mother owned a confectionery; and the family again relocated to Mount Clemens, Michigan, where they purchased a large working farm. Hornak graduated from the New Haven High School in Michigan as a member of the National Honor Society; briefly attended University of Michigan–Dearborn; and transferred to Wayne State University in Detroit where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in studio art in 1964; and Master of Fine Arts in studio art in 1966. Throughout his undergraduate and graduate studies, Hornak concentrated on painting in a realist technique that depicted the rural landscapes of his childhood; as well as erotic subjects that resulted from the then current exploration of his bisexuality.

Hornak owned a home and a large studio in East Hampton, New York which he used as his primary residence from 1970 until his death in 2002. He also had a secondary penthouse studio on New York City’s Upper East Side near the intersection of East 73rd Street and Park Avenue.

In response to Hornak’s multiple exposure landscape paintings, John Canaday wrote in The New York Times in 1974, "Mr. Hornak is right at the top of the list of romantically descriptive painters today". As Hornak was nearing the end of the multiple exposure landscape series, Marcia Corbino wrote in the Sarasota Herald Tribune, "Not since the Hudson River School glorified the grandiose panorama of the natural world in meticulous detail has an American artist embraced landscape painting with the artistic totality of Ian Hornak".

Ian Hornak, had a younger sister, Rosemary Hornak who was also a fine artist, and the sole beneficiary of his estate; and younger brother, Michael Hornak. who was a prominent American casting director, producer, theatrical agent, During the 1950s and 1960s, Wolf had been the assistant director of Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery in New York City where he became a champion of American Modernism in the visual arts. Together, Wolf and Hornak lived at their homes in New York City's Upper East Side and at their weekend home in East Hampton, New York, where Hornak continued to live until his own death in 2002. The overall collection of artwork which has been dubbed "The Jay Wolf Bequest of Contemporary Art" by the college was exhibited at the Beaumont May Gallery in The Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, June 24 to August 28, 1977, and is recognized as the most significant bequest of artwork to Dartmouth College during the 1970s. On January 21, 2011, Hornak was interred in the Columbarium of Piety in the Iris Terrace section of the Great Mausoleum in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, in Los Angeles County, California. A traveling retrospective exhibition, Transparent Barricades: Ian Hornak, A Retrospective, co sponsored by the Ian Hornak Foundation, began traveling to museums throughout the United States in 2011 and was scheduled to continue through 2016. Hornak's artwork was the subject of a solo exhibition, on display during the 2013 Presidential Inauguration at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in the Eccles Building in Washington D. C. under the sponsorship of the Ben Bernanke Administration.

Hornak's personal papers and effects entered into the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art in 2007. His artwork is owned by the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American Art; the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History; the Library of Congress; the Corcoran Gallery of Art; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Albrecht Kemper Museum of Art; the Allen Memorial Art Museum; the Austin Museum of Art; the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute; the Canton Museum of Art; the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College; the Detroit Historical Museum; the Flint Institute of Arts; the Forest Lawn Museum; Galleria Internazionale; The George Washington University Art Galleries; Guild Hall; the Children's Hospital Boston (Harvard Medical School affiliate); the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction; the Long Island Museum of American Art, History, and Carriages; the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library; the National Hellenic Museum; the Ringling College of Art and Design; the Rockford Art Museum; the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University; the Florida State Capital; St. Mary's University, Texas; The Art Gallery at the University of Maryland; the University of Texas at San Antonio; the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College; the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts; and Wayne State University. In 2012, an additional portion of Hornak's papers and personal effects entered the permanent collection of Dartmouth College's Rauner Special Collections Library.