Joseph Tomanek, a painter active mainly in Indiana and Illinois, was born on a farm in Straznice, Czechoslovakia (in Southeastern Moravia) on April 16, 1889 and died in 1974. An old biography in The Palette and Chisel (June 1929) tells of Joseph carving his own violin out of pine wood, and he demonstrated some talent in music. First he studied the rudiments of art at the School of Design in Prague, then emigrated to America, partly to escape three years of military service, and arrived in Chicago in 1910. His actual profession was interior designer but he took more art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago under a compatriot, Antonin Sterba (1875-1963), who had been trained in the Paris academies. Albert Kre...