Tuska House

Hours:

Tuska House is open by appointment.

Weekly and Weekend Hours Coming Soon

Tuska House remains a home. The Director in residence is available for tours and educational programming development.

About
American Artist John Regis Tuska (1931-1998) Lexington, Kentucky, where he lived, created, and taught, is celebrating his life and oeuvre, opening Tuska House. Prior to his passing, Tuska commissioned his estate to share his life as an educator. Pointing to the sign in his studio, he said: “one life would never be enough for all the things I want to say and do… work generates work.”

Tuska’s creations were celebrations of our most precious gift…Life. His is a story of the dynamic human condition. Tuska, as he liked to be called, was born in Pennsylvania to a Slovakimmigrant coal miner. Raised in Brooklyn, discovering the cultural riches 1940’s New York had to offer, was blessed by an education at the LaGuardia High School of Music and Art (’50), where he discovered clay, and the libraries and museums, where he spent his creative free time.

He earned an MFA at the New York State School of Ceramics at Alfred (’60), then spent his career as an artist educator at the University of Kentucky. Rarely promoting, Tuska taught. While clay was his teaching, his self taught interest in the human figure, from drawing to sculpture, inspired him as an artist and teacher to always ask, “ what if?”

“Each individual, working, studies and learns to become automatic with his techniques. The materials the artist chooses are his tool. His process techniques are his method. Both of these combine to make his vision and imagination. Trying to go beyond what is realistic, abstract or perhaps expected, and create a new dimension that confronts the producer and viewer into a sense reaction.”

Tuska House, Tuska’s home in Lexington is preserved as a historic house museum and a permanent tribute to the educator.

With an undeniable passion for the human body, mind, and spirit, the power of Tuska’s art communicates a passion and longing for clarity and the understanding of life and everything around it. Inspiring Life Through Art.

Tuska House remains a home. The Director in residence is available for tours and educational programming development.

Mission
The Tuska Foundation and Arts Center is formed to: To preserve and grow the legacy of John Regis Tuska, figurative artist, legendary educator, and iconic humanitarian, for a local, state, national, and international constituency. To promote self-discovery and personal, progressive education plans, borrowing from and inspired by the art and soul of Tuska and his living legacy. To identify and further the mission of making the world a better place one child, one adult, and one piece of art at a time.

Exhibition:

Permanent Collection