Louis F. Dlugosz

Louis F. Dlugosz, (1915 - 2002). The sculptor-steelworker's only formal art training was at the old Art Institute of Buffalo. After serving two years in the U.S. Army, he returned home and launched his career. Using his "pretzel-bending" technique, Dlugosz rolled clay into strips and bent them together for a lattice-work effect, resulting in sculpture with an open rather than a solid interior His work was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Beaux-Arts School and the Louvre in Paris. In 1982, his bust of Lech Walesa - surrounded by bars because the Polish labor leader was jailed by the Communist regime - was blessed by Pope John Paul II in the Vatican. A bust of kidnapped American reporter (Batavia, New York native) Terry Anderson in chains was displayed in a downtown Batavia New York Mall until his release from a Lebanese prison. The chains were smashed by Anderson during a visit to his hometown.