By Kristy Wagner

Staff Writer

Richard A. Dabrowski’s art studio is missing a few items.

The 99-year-old sculptor’s son, Richard, has taken pieces of his father’s workshop from the basement of Dabrowski’s Kennebunkport home and moved them to the Kennebunkport Historical Society’s Pasco Center.

The historical society will feature Dabrowski’s artwork in a retrospective exhibit that runs Sunday through March 9.

“They’re bringing in enough stuff now to hang on all of the walls,” Dabrowski said in an interview at his home in Kennebunkport.

Susan Edwards, director of Kennebunkport Historical Society, said she approached Dabrowski about the exhibit more than one year ago. She said with his 100th birthday approaching an exhibit of his work seemed appropriate.

“It seemed as though this would be an appropriate time to honor him and showcase his very diverse career,” Edwards said.

After approaching him more than one year ago, Edwards said she broached the subject of an exhibit with him again this fall.

“He immediately contacted his children,” Edwards said.

Dabrowski’s son and daughter have pieced together the entire exhibit on their father.

“It’s very much a family project,” Edwards said. “They thought that if they did it together as a family it would be a more meaningful exhibition.”

Edwards said Dabrowski’s exhibit will begin with the work of his father, Adam Dabrowski, who was a master woodcarver, and then move into Dabrowski’s own work that consisted of various mediums and began with his first commission in 1932 of a bronze flying horse.

“He’s an artist, he’s a designer, he’s a sculptor,” Edwards said.

She also described Dabrowski as a “wonderful illustrator” and Dabrowski shared a collection of small notebooks filled with many years worth of sketches that display his talent for illustration.

Dabrowski, who was born in Larchmont, N.Y., in 1912, went to New York City after high school and studied at the National Academy of Design. Before that he had received private instruction in wood engraving from C. Ahachski and in drawing and painting from Stanislav Rembski. Both men were masters of their craft.

While at the academy, Dabrowski received his first official job as a sculptor.

“A man came in and was looking for a sculptor and hired me,” Dabrowski said.

His first job entailed sculpting mannequins used for modeling clothes and hats for big name department stores in New York City.

“Of course in those days everything was very handmade,” he said.

From that first job he developed a freelance sculpting career, but had to put his work on hold when he went into the Army’s Signal Corps Intelligence Unit as a private during World War II. He left the Army as a captain in 1946 and began a career in ceramics.

Dabrowski said after the war the government “was encouraging craftsmen of all kinds” to learn new trades and begin working in shops. He said his interest in sculpture led him into ceramics and he became the proprietor of a ceramics manufacturing and design company in New Hampshire from 1946 to 1954.

While working in ceramics, Dabrowski created a line of pieces that he sold in posh stores throughout the country. He keeps a few of the pitchers, bowls and vases in his home today.

Dabrowski moved his family to Massachusetts in the 1950s and while there, he landed a job as a plant manager for Atomic Instrument Co. in Boston that manufactured nuclear measuring devices. He then moved on to become a manger at Raytheon Co. in Lowell, Mass., which manufactured air-to-air guidance systems for Navy missiles.

While living in Massachusetts, the artist managed to develop a freelance illustration business where he sold his white line engravings on scratchboard.

“Life just opens up,” Dabrowski said. “More for some than others. In my case it was because my father was a sculptor.”

 Dabrowski said he did modeling, casting and other art forms from a young age because of his father’s influence. He said he was sculpting in high school before he ever left for design school in New York City.

“Out of that, just out of the clear blue, came opportunities,” he said.

Dabrowski retired to Kennebunkport in 1984. He uses the term “retired” but claims he never really did.

“I just moved around from one place to another,” Dabrowski said.

Since settling in Kennebunkport he has created new work. He began making wooden jigsaw puzzles in the 1990s and continued to plaster cast enchanting three-dimensional images of chickadees, flowers, humpback whales and other scenes. One of his first commissions in Maine was the design and construction of large terra cotta panels for a chimney 30 feet high on a private residence in Portland.

Dabrowski’s basement workshop remains well stocked with molds, casts, brushes, cutting tools, rulers, pencils and just about everything an artist of varying mediums would need.

“When this show is over what are they going to do with all of the boxes and benches?” Dabrowski asked as he looked around his workshop.

Edwards said the center of the exhibit will showcase a few of Dabrowski’s workbenches and some of his tools to help visitors get more of an idea of how the artist worked.

When asked if he would need his workbenches back, the 99-year-old said he most likely would not.

“I’m at the end of my rope now, I don’t feel like working on those things anymore,” he said.

Dabrowski said he has “grown tired” of constantly creating, but he said he looks forward to the upcoming exhibit at the Pasco Center.

“It will be an interesting show,” he said.

Dabrowski said he has been lucky to reach his advanced age.

“I’ve been very fortunate of being not ill,” he said.

Dabrowski said that he had a heart attack in 1993, but his doctors “fixed that” for him.

Edwards said the exhibition of Dabrowski is part of the historical society’s plan to offer year round programs.

“(Dabrowski’s exhibition) is sort of a further expansion of the plan to offer art and history and culture exhibitions for the residents and visitors of Kennebunkport and of the Kennebunks in general,” she said.

Dabrowski said he and his children will attend the opening 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday.  The exhibition will be open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays until March 9.

Staff writer Kristy Wagner can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.

Edwards said the focus of the Kennebunkport Historical Society is Kennebunkport history and art.

“Our collections reflect Kennebunkport,” she said.