“He Loved to Paint”

The 2026 Henryk Ptasiewicz Retrospective will celebrate the heart of a beloved painter who made St. Louis his home.

By Kara Dicker

The decision to hold a retrospective at Heartland Art Club in honor of Henryk Ptasiewicz (1955-2025), a beloved artist who made St. Louis his home, was an easy one for Jane Flanders, his longtime partner and fellow artist. Henryk and Jane met Shawn Cornell, HAC gallery director, through years of plein air events. Jane trusted Shawn.

“Shawn is easy to work with; I’m grateful,” Jane says.

The 2026 Henry Ptasiewicz Retrospective, which she curated, runs May 6-June 6 and features 48 works from the artist’s studio inventory. The pieces represent a wide range of styles, including figurative, representational, impressionistic, abstract, and plein air.

“I wanted something that demonstrated his range of skills,” says Jane. “He was trained as a graphic artist and did everything from graphic art to fine art.”

One wall is devoted entirely to portraiture. Where’s the Party? is a 48 x 36 oil featuring a fun-loving-looking woman dressed to celebrate. “He loved to paint people,” Jane recalls, “especially their eyes.”

Where’s the Party? Henryk Ptasiewicz, 48 x 36, oil.

The show’s centerpiece is a vibrantly colored heart, a reverse acrylic painting in vigorous brushstrokes on a clear acrylic panel. Like most of his works, the 30 x 30 piece is untitled. However, the message is felt.

“I chose that heart painting as a symbol of his show because Henryk, with his passion and his love, is part of us artists,” Jane says. “His memory lives on in his art.”

Additionally, the work is a nod to the early twentieth-century avant-garde painter Kazimir Malevich, whom Henryk greatly admired. Malevich’s iconic Black Square (1915) inspired an artistic movement that emphasized the emotion of simple geometric shapes.

“I think of it (the heart painting) as an emblem of Henryk’s emotion,” Jane explains. “Henryk was a very loving person. People who knew him just really responded to that.”

Untitled, Henryk Ptasiewicz, 30 x 30 acrylic.

Originally from England, Henryk trained at St. Martin’s School of Art in London, where he received a BA in graphic art in 1978. He worked as a designer, sculptor, and illustrator. His most notable work was for Fibre Arts Ltd, designing and producing fiberglass playgrounds and other structures.

In the 1980s, in Plymouth, England, Henryk befriended professional fine artist Robert Lenkiewicz (1941-2002), who at the time was making a name for himself for his straight-eye style of portraiture depicting people living in the margins of society.

“Henryk learned about the dedication it takes to be an artist, and about social activism,” Jane says.

Henryk arrived in St. Louis in 1999 and quickly became active in the local art scene. He taught classes, painted commissioned portraiture, painted at the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, and worked from his studio in the Soulard Fine Arts Building. In 2014, Henryk was invited to participate in St. Louis’ “Cakeway to the West” public art celebration of its 250^th birthday, where Henryk’s painted fiberglass cakes were displayed at prominent locations, including The Old Courthouse, the St. Louis Feldman Kaplan Holocaust Museum, and The World’s Fair Pavilion in Forest Park. A lover of animals, Henryk could be counted on to lend his artistic talent for fundraisers benefiting the St. Louis Humane Society of Missouri.

Henryk was also a founding member of the Missouri Plein Air Painters, through which he met numerous artists, including Billyo O’Donnell. The two painted together along the Katy Trail. He also met Shawn Cornell and became affiliated with The Heartland Art Club.

Shawn recalls working with Henryk last year, when the two juried the Augusta Plein Air Art Festival in St. Charles County. “He was one of these guys who would give you the shirt off his back,” Shawn says. “Henryk was a much-loved, long-time fixture of the St. Louis art scene.”

For viewers who have never experienced Henryk’s work, Jane says that the show will expose the bounty of the artist’s imagination, citing wedding portraits rendered with a playfulness that gets to the heart of the artist’s personality. “Henry had the greatest imagination that I’ve ever been around,” she says. “He thought in color. He had a to-do list at the studio that was done in pictures.”

As for the many viewers who are familiar with Henryk’s work, Jane believes the show will give them another opportunity to learn a little more about how he put things together. “When he taught workshops, he’d say ‘paint what you see,’” she says. “So now they can look again and search to learn how he painted what he saw.” According to Jane, Henryk liked to use the saying, ‘Once you can paint the real, you can paint the surreal.’

Jane and Henryk met through the plein air painting scene. “We didn’t have a complicated relationship,” she says. “We just enjoyed being together.” When asked how she would describe Henryk the artist, her response was simple: “He loved to paint.”

Jane Flanders and Henryk Ptasiewicz.