Memorial service held for former Penn State Fayette Campus professor
A memorial was held Tuesday for an internationally recognized sculptor and art professor who served as the early chairman of the art department at Penn State Fayette Campus. Zeljko Kujundzic, who helped establish a British Columbia art school, was 82. He died Thursday evening at a care home in Osoyoos, British Columbia, just north of the U.S. border.
Kujundzic, who painted and worked in clay, metal and stone, was recognized locally for his creation of “The Gate of Life,” at the Jewish Community Center along West Main Street in Uniontown. The sculpture stands as a memorial to the 6 million Jews slain by the Nazis during the Holocaust of World War II.
He began teaching at Penn State in January 1968 at the main campus and moved to the Fayette campus in September of that year, given the opportunity to develop the art program at the local campus.
In 1979, he was promoted to the rank of full professor in Penn State’s College of Arts and Architecture.
He was the first full professor at the Fayette campus.
Kujundzic retired in August 1982 after 14 years at Penn State and was named a professor emeritus. He was credited during that time for inventing a solar powered kiln and helping pioneer the Fayette campus solar heating and cooling technology program.
A native of Subotica, Yugoslavia, he was educated at the Institute of Fine Arts in Budapest, Hungary, painted in Scotland from 1946 to 1956 and moved to Cranbrook in southwestern British Columbia in 1958.
Kujundzic’s autobiography, “Torn Canvas,” published in 1957, documented his early life and experiences during World War II, including escapes from both the Nazis and Russians.
Kujundzic became director of the Nelson School of Fine Arts in the early 1960s prior to his hiring by Penn State University.
Kujundzic’s work was shown in galleries in Europe, Japan and North America, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., in 1988 and the Nahan Gallery in New York City.
The International Academy of Ceramics included his work in an exhibition of miniatures that was shown in Paris and Kyoto, Japan, during the early 1980s.
An article published in the California Art Review in 1989 described him as “inspired by ancient art and by the native cultures of America, Japan and Europe. At the center of his work is his concern for the human condition.”
Two of his acrylic paintings were included in the National Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary Art in Boston in 1993.
He moved to Osoyoos in 1990.
Survivors include his wife, six children, seven grandchildren and a great-grandson.
(The Associated Press contributed to this story).