Dan Hodermarsky
Daniel Hodermarsky (1924–1999) was the son of Slovak immigrants who emigrated from Hačava to settle and work in the coal fields of Pennsylvania and later in the auto-manufacturing industries of Ohio. He served in World War II on the Western front and was awarded two presidential citations, two Croix de Guerre, and one combat star. He returned home with severe and persistent Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that left an indelible mark on his life and art.
Hodermarsky had a distinguished teaching career at the Cleveland Institute of Art from 1957 to 1969. Throughout the 1960s, he also taught in Cleveland’s public schools and started an art program for inner-city youth under the Federal Title 3 Act to promote integration through arts education. From 1969 to 1989 he taught at Deerfield Academy in western Massachusetts, founding its art department and serving for several years as department chair and director of the school’s Hilson Gallery (now the von Auersperg Gallery).
Throughout his career, Hodermarsky’s work embraced both the representational and the abstract. His early works experimented with new media and new styles such as Op Art and performance. In the 1970s and beyond, he engaged landscape—rural and urban and imaginary—wherein he explored the interplay of terrain. The human figure—Slovak farmers, wounded or dismembered soldiers, and mythical and historical figures—were among his main subjects. He was fascinated by how age, human nature, and personality combine to create the physical form. His eclectic themes mirrored his own unique complexities and experiences.