Dusan Kadlec

Artist Bio: Dusan Kadlec (1942-2018)

Dusan Kadlec is a well-known Maritime and Marine artist who had lived and painted in Nova Scotia for the past four decades. Kadlec was born and educated in Czechoslovakia. His early artistic career consisted mostly of commercial work, as well as private and state commissions. Following graduation with a Master of Fine Art from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, he immediately received critical acclaim and attention for his work and contributed to a number of exhibitions, including an invitation to participate in the design of Man and his World exhibit at the Czech Pavillion for the 1967 World Expo in Montreal. Soon after, he immigrated to Canada during the Soviet Invasion, known as the “Prague Spring” of 1969. On his arrival in Canada, Dusan was painting in the abstract-style, for which there was little market in Halifax, and as a consequence, he switched to painting historical subject-matter in and around Halifax, and more recently, the United States. His work embodies the Romantic Classicism that was prevalent in the tradition of the European Masters and is reflected in his academic training.

Kadlec’s work is in countless public, private, and corporate collections worldwide, including the Burrichter/Kierlin Marine Art Collection, one of America’s largest and finest private Marine Art collections.

In 2008 Dusan Kadlec received the Rudolph J. Schaefer Maritime Heritage Award; an honor given to the artist whose work best documents and preserves America’s maritime heritage.