Bio
Born June 15 1948 in Wildflecken Germany in a Displaced Persons camp to parents from Poland and Ukraine, Marion came to Chicago at the age of two. Growing up in Ravenswood and Belmont-Cragin, he attended Our Lady of Lourdes for elementary school and graduating from Lane Tech in 1966. He then attended the School of the Art Institute, where he studied painting and drawing. He continued his studies in an MFA program at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.
In 1981, he returned to his alma mater at the School of the Art Institute, where he worked until his retirement in 2016. During his long career at SAIC, he sharpened the skills and inspired the artistic vision of countless young painters. In the 1990s, Marion also worked with high school students in Chicago’s Gallery 37 program. A representational painter, Marion’s work spans genres of figure, landscape, still life, and mural painting.
In 2016, Marion took early retirement due to the progression of Parkinson’s. SAIC received an endowment to support part-time faculty through the Marion Kryczka Teaching Excellence Award in honor of the esteemed Painting and Drawing Adjunct Associate Professor.
Marion’s paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout Chicago, New York and in Poland.
Teaching Experience
1981 – 2016
Adjunct Associate Professor, Drawing & Painting, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
1999 – 2015
Marion taught life drawing principles as an art instructor at Gallery 37, Chicago Public Schools (through the Advanced Educational Program), Triton Community College, Prologue Alternative High School in Chicago and at Mundelein College, Chicago.
Selected Exhibitions
- 2019 One man show, Eat Paint Studio, Chicago, IL
- 2013 One man show, The Cliff Dwellers Gallery, Chicago, IL
- 2011 One man show, Recent Paintings, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL
- 2006 One man show, Connie Gillock Gallery, Chicago
- 2004 Assembled Visions, Orlean Street Gallery, Pheasant Run, St. Charles, Illinois
- 2004 One Person Show, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Chicago
- 2003 Group Show, Veridian Artist Space, New York City
- 2003 One Person Show, Robert Morris College, Chicago
- 2003 One Person Show, Union League Club, Chicago
- 2003 One Person Show, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Chicago
- 2001 One Person Show, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Chicago
- 2001 Transcultural Visions, Polish American Artists Group Show, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago and National Museum, Szcecin, Poland
- 1999 Group Show, N.F.A. Space Gallery
- 1999 Chicago Models View, Peter Jones Gallery, Chicago
- 1998 Perceptions, Riverside Art Gallery, Riverside, Illinois
- 1997 Local Heroes, Wood Street Gallery, Chicago
- 1993/86/84 NAB Gallery Shows, Chicago
- 1993 Drawing New Conclusions, Art Institute of Chicago
- 1986 One Person Show, Space Gallery, Chicago
- 1986 29 Chicago Artists, Central Washington University
- 1986 Rosenthal Fine Art Gallery Shows, Chicago
- 1985 Self Portraits, Then and Now, ARC Gallery, Chicago
- 1984 Group Show, Acceleration Laboratory, Fermi Lab Gallery, Batavia, Illinois
- 1984 One Person Show, Joliet College, Joliet, Illinois
Inclusion in Collections
Kemper Insurance Company Corporate Collection, Chicago
Ukrainian Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Robert Morris College, Chicago
Education
1972 M.F.A. University of Illinois, Champaign Urbana
1970 B.F.A. School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Press
- Today in Culture, Busy Beaver introduces Ukraine Button pack, New City, Ray Pride, May 2022
- Marion Kryczka: Paintings and Drawings, Chicago Gallery News, June 2019
- A review of Marion Kryczka at Eat Paint Studio, NewCity Art, June 2019, by Chris Miller
- Street Mural in Joliet a Tribute to Route 66, by John Walsh, 2017
- NewCity Art, review of Marion Kryczka at the Cultural Center, by Chris Miller, April 2011
- Review: Marion Kryczka -Small Works, Katherine R. Lieber, ArtScope.net, April 2006
- Marion Kryczka and the Art of the Living Thing, Matthew Ballou, June 2005
- Kryczka finds ways to re-energize his work, by Jenn Q. Goddu, ChicagoTribune, November 05, 2004
- Transcultural Visions: Polish American Contemporary Art (PDF), exhibition review by Jurek Polanski, curators: Gosia Koscielak, Elżbieta Koscielak
- “Drawings and Paintings” Recent work by Marion Kryczka , reviewed by Jurek Polanski for ArtScope.net, 1999
- SOLIDARITY, by Lisa Stein for Chicago Tribune, August 1999
- Guy Things, by Mark Schwartz, Chicago Reader, December 1997
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