The First Fifty Years

About the Book

In The First Fifty Years, the author, a former diplomat, explores dozens of his drawings, paintings and collages done on four continents for links between his art, life story, and the influence of where he drew and painted. Combining work log and memoir, he sees his art change over time and place yet somehow stay the same. In the end he finds his artistic journey became not only a way of seeing the world, but of transcending it.

About the Author

The author escaped Communist Eastern Europe after World War II, discovered a love of drawing as a schoolboy in Austria, and a passion for writing and painting when he eventually reached America. He studied art and writing at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Oregon. His two passions became a life jacket, helping him survive teaching English and twenty years as an American diplomat working in Europe, Africa and South America. He has published poems and stories in literary magazines and a novel, Discovering America.