to quote Jack Zajac ”To have a message or an emotional stimulation soaked up by an uncertainty of the Artist’s tool — color — shape — form — which are the punctuation of his message, is a discouraging thing. This is the kind of anemia I’m trying to eliminate.”

Jack Zajac is a Californian West Coast artist (born 1929) known for his sculptures in bronze and marble, as well as his figurative paintings. He was a member of the art community that developed in Claremont, California during the mid-20th century.

He has maintained a strong connection with Umbria over many years spending part of each year near Todi with his artist wife, Corda Eby.

Over the course of a 50-year career spent in Europe and the United States, Jack Zajac has worked in a variety of sculptural idioms, ranging from Surrealism to biomorphism and pure abstraction. In polished stone and bronze, he has created objects that resemble animal skulls, abstract birds, flowing water, clouds, and contorted animals. Through meditative exploration of the ability of form to carry meaning, Zajac touches on religious themes of ablution, rebirth, and sacrifice. His best-known work is a series of pinioned sacrificial animals impaled by stake, a theme he has returned to repeatedly over the course of his career.

He received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rome Prize. He is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Design. He has been an Artist in Residence at the American Academy in Rome, Dartmouth College and the University of California, Santa Cruz.