Turzak, an Illinois native, studied at the
Art Institute of Chicago. He was a member of the honorary art fraternity
Delta Phi Delta and taught printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts. From
the 1920s on the artist created prints and illustrated books, often with
original woodcuts or wood engravings, while earning a living as a
commercial artist. He was a watercolorist and worked as a muralist during
the WPA era. His American Regionalist woodcuts from the 1930s and ‘40s are
highly sought after. He died in Florida.
Four of the woodcuts shown here originally
appeared in his 1933 book "Abraham Lincoln: Biography in Woodcuts." We
believe our images may be from a later book,
Scholastic Publishing’s “True Stories About Abraham Lincoln,” which
appeared in the early 1970s. Turzak sold the reproduction rights to
Scholastic.