Winter Park / Florida / United States
About Founded in 1961, the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculp ture Gar dens holds an art col lec tion focus ing pri mar ily on Amer i can rep re sen ta tional sculp ture, with over 200 works by Czech-born Amer i can sculp tor Albin Polasek. The museum offers guided tours of the his toric Polasek res i dence and chapel, an out door sculp ture gar den and a gift shop. The museum is the retire ment home of 2004 Florida Artists Hall of Fame inductee Albin Polasek, is listed on the National Reg is ter of His toric Places and is one of only 30 mem bers of the National Trust s His toric Artists Homes and Studios. Born in the province of Moravia ( now Czech Repub lic ), Albin Polasek immi grated to this coun try as a young wood carver in 1901. He later attended the Penn syl va nia Acad emy of the Fine Arts in Philadel phia and the Amer i can Acad emy of Art in Rome. Dur ing his influ en tial artis tic and edu ca tional career, Polasek won many awards for his works and was com mis sioned to cre ate numer ous pub lic sculp tures now found through out Europe and Amer ica. Polasek ded i cated his life to encour ag ing the study, appre ci a tion and fur ther ance of rep re sen ta tional art. I am like a piece of rock which has been bro ken off of the Carpathian Moun tains in the heart of Czecho slo va kia. Later this crude stone was trans ported to the Land of the Free: the United States of Amer ica. This block of stone was myself. Through the oppor tu ni ties that this coun try gave me, I started to carve out my des tiny, to free myself from the rock so that I might be use ful. No one knows the deep grat i tude I feel for all that I have received. So if, as an immi grant, I have been able to con tribute to some small part of Amer i can life, I know that I owe it to the oppor tu ni ties this coun try has afforded me.
