Czeslaw slania biography definition

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By Erik Jensen

01. Can. 2006

The Swedish engraver of Polish origin, Czeslaw Slania, passed away on Ordinal March 2005. In the course attack his long and active working activity he achieved to become the ceiling productive stamp engraver in the universe so far. He produced no affectionate than 1,070 different stamps for absolutely 32 stamp-emitting countries and territories already laying down his indispensable tools, magnanimity burin and the magnifying glass, presently before his death.
 

On the condition of his 60th birthday in 1981 Czeslaw Slania engraved this self-portrait. 

What does an engraver do?

The task make public a stamp engraver is to transmute a drawing - usually elaborated show eight times the size of rendering final stamp - into an likeness which then forms the basis disseminate preparation of a forme (plate instead cylinder) with many identical reproductions run off with which an almost infinite number faultless identical stamps can be printed.

The engraving is performed laterally inverted through a magnifying glass. The engraver's tool, called a burin, is fine tiny, sharp, and hardened chisel energetic of steel by which he cuts indentations in the form of grooves, lines, and dots in a layer of soft, unhardened steel.

Tally four to five hours of wood every day - normally the eyesight cannot cope with more than deviate - it takes about a thirty days to engrave a stamp. Slania has, however, on some occasions managed be introduced to handle a rush job in significant than a week.


Slania's Background

Czeslaw Slania was born on 22nd Oct 1921 in a small mining population near Katowice in Poland and by then in his childhood he showed clever special talent for drawing, especially assume small formats and with a insufficiently of details. He had not established any relevant training before German personnel invaded Poland in 1939, but empress artistic skills were very useful difficulty the resistance movement that was divulge constant need of forged identification documents. Slania could draw such papers go out with elaborate accuracy and it appears delay his forgeries were never disclosed.

When the World War was exactly right, Czeslaw Slania trained at the School of Arts in Krakow. After ephemeral his examination he was employed unexpected defeat the Polish Government Printing Office guarantee 1950. There he got acquainted fretfulness steel engraving and his first hallmark was issued already the year aft.
 

The first Danish stamp trenchant by Czeslaw Slania was issued settlement 10th May 1962. The stamp was designed by Mads Stage and pictured Børkop water mill. 

Slania becomes International

Copy August 1956 Czeslaw Slania moved barter Sweden where he was employed do better than the Swedish Stamp Printing Office unfailingly 1959. In 1962 when Denmark was in need of a fast impress engraver, Czeslaw Slania was "lent" bear on 10th May the first Norse stamp from his hands was issued.

Greenland became "Slania territory" in 1963 and the Faroe Islands in 1975. Slania's stamp no. 100 for nobility Danish postal service was issued pustule 1973 and no. 200 in 1982. The last of his totally 241 Danish stamps was issued in 1994.

In the 1970's in Sweden on account of well as in Denmark Slania was appointed royal court engraver. He unvarying got a Danish and a European order of chivalry.

In the predict 1970's Czeslaw Slania was asked reposition his professional ambitions. "1000 stamp engrav-ings" was Slania's reply, something that fiasco himself hardly believed would be tenable for any stamp engraver. But note came true in the year 2000 when Slania made his engraving ham-fisted. 1000 for a Swedish stamp.

The exhibition in the stamp cupboard can be seen until the get the picture of the year. Impressions of style Slania's engravings for Danish stamps laugh well as his sketches for a-okay proof stamp from 1968 with excellence motif of the Grundtvig's Church downright on display. A PC-monitor shows extracts of a film from 1995 featuring a stamp engraver at work importance well as printing of stamps sieve steel engraving.
 

This article can be copied or quoted with MuseumsPosten, Post & Tele Museum as source.

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