“Gledaj!”

“They don’t know that in one hundred years St. Nicholas will be the most famous church in America.”

— 1959, Father Albert Zagar, pastor of St. Nichaolas Croation Church in Millvale, Pennsylvania

“Gledaj!” (Look! See!), artist Maxo Vanka (1889-1963) often exclaimed in his native Croatian.

Maxo Vanka’s artistry is on display in his amazing murals—the murals led to Fr. Zagar’s confident prediction in 1959—found in St. Nicholas Croatian Church in Millvale, Pennsylvania. Today the church is renowned, if not famous, and is one of the six churches that comprise The Shrines of Pittsburgh.

St. Nicholas was established in 1900 at a time when Pittsburgh industry was attracting large numbers of immigrants, with the number of Croatians estimated at 50,000.

Vanka worked from 1937 to 1941, a time of the New Deal renaissance and in the heart of a heavily industrialized urban region and neighborhood church built by, and serving, laborers and their families.

His murals “derive from a providential conjunction of three factors: an immigrant Croatian community willing to provide a venue; an, an artist with an extraordinary experience of both poverty and privilege, and a dramatic time of conflict and social upheaval.” ¹ Many of his murals defy expectations in a Catholic church.

“His youthful fire as an observer of social injustice and human brutality is never extinguished. For most of his artistic career, Maxo mixes together his classical training and highly developed drawing skills with the anger of a reformer and the didactic narrative of a classical painter. “

— Bruce Katsliff, former director, James Michener Museum, 2002.

Today, we can look! see! his many murals—thanks to the efforts of many, including The Society to Preserve the Murals of Maxo Vanka. To date, 18 murals have been conserved.

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To fully appreciate his artistry please see the murals here. You won’t be disappointed.

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And the story behind the murals and the effort to save and conserve them was the subject of a recent video production of NextPittsburgh and can be found here.

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1. Catalogue of the Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka