Joseph Slawinski

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Joseph Slawinski (November 27, 1905 – 1983) was a Polish artist and sculptor best known for sgraffito, a labor-intensive mural technique that uses layers of wet cement to create designs.

Born in Warsaw, he studied at the School of Decorative Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts, and he learned sgraffito on a trip to Italy. He worked as a professor at the Fine Arts Academy in Warsaw and, after World War II, helped restore art damaged during the war. He also practiced fresco, hammered copper, and scratched tempera, but sgraffito was his specialty. He fought in the Warsaw Uprising during World War II.

Slawinski moved to the United States, settling in Buffalo, New York, after emigrating in 1964. His first local commission decorated the sanctuary of the Church of the Assumption in Buffalo’s Black Rock neighborhood. He also did work at Stella Niagara, the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity; created a mural for the Basilica of Our Lady of Fatima in Lewiston; and contributed to St. Stanislaus Church in Buffalo. He painted sgraffito murals of Copernicus and Chopin at Villa Maria College.

The Polish Arts Club helped relocate an 18-by-12-foot mural from Graycliff in Derby to the Buffalo State College campus, where it now hangs and depicts St. Joseph Calasanctius, founder of the Piarist order. In 2021, a Slawinski mural was donated to Canisius College and is displayed in the library.