Associated Press - Workers have completed a phase of conservation work on historic murals by the late artist Maxo Vanka at St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church near Pittsburgh. The vivid results underscore the original power of the murals, which Vanka painted more than 80 years ago, fusing tradi...
Associated Press - How do you conserve 80-year-old murals that have accumulated decades’ worth of soot, salt and other deterioration? Slowly and carefully, using everything from scientific analysis to seaweed extract to everyday tools — like cosmetic sponges and shish kebab sticks. That was th...
Associated Press - When the scaffolding came down inside the unassuming hilltop church near Pittsburgh, it revealed a raging storm of biblical proportions. A wide-eyed Moses holds the Ten Commandments aloft in righteous fury, ready to shatter the tablets when his followers abandon God for a golde...
NEXTpittsburgh - Three things that surprised me: Anna explained that Maxo Vanka immigrated to New York from Croatia in 1934 with his American wife. A trip to the industrial centers of America brought him to Pittsburgh for two weeks in 1935 when he walked the streets and sketched the city. Some of th...
NEXTpittsburgh - At one time the blackened, soot-stained skies of Pittsburgh were the promised land for thousands of immigrants. Fleeing poverty, persecution and famine, they willingly became cogs in the industrial machine because the mills and mines of Pittsburgh were still better than the dire con...
90.5 WESA - Art conservation is painstaking work. All the more when the art is painted right onto the interior walls of an active church. That’s the story of Maxo Vanka’s acclaimed murals at St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church, in Millvale. The 25 stunning, large-scale images, which date to the...
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - On a brief break from the annual gathering of the United Nations General Assembly, the prime minister of Croatia made a brief stop in the Steel City on Thursday evening to fulfill a promise he made. Last summer, Bernadette Luketich-Sikaras, the secretary treasurer of the...
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - The 25 murals Maxo Vanka painted on the walls and ceiling of St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale are often called his gift to America. Now the Croatian artist’s granddaughter, Marya Halderman, has made a gift to the Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals o...