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In memory of

Mark Wilchusky

New York, NY, USA

July 3, 1962 - January 3, 2021

Jul 3, 1962 - Jan 3, 2021

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We’re very saddened by the death of Mark Wilchusky, ship’s captain, art historian and art dealer, beloved father of Claire and Marguerite Wilchusky, just before New Year’s Eve in New York City. Mark was born on July 3rd, 1962 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, son of conceptual artist, painter and avant-garde filmmaker LeAnn Bartok and radiologist Bernard Wilchusky. He loved the outdoors as a boy, tramping through the Pennsylvania woods near Ligonier, PA where his mother maintained an art studio and fly fishing, often with flies he'd tied himself from pelts he’d dried and prepared. He loved James Bond and Clint Eastwood movies growing up, and the novels of Joseph Conrad and Herman Melville, and saw himself throughout his life as an adventurer out of fiction in many ways. He attended Churchill High School (later Woodland Hills Area High School) in the Pittsburgh suburbs where he was an exceptional straight-A student; after briefly studying pre-med, he transferred to New York University where he pursued studies in art history at the Institute of Fine Arts.

After college, Mark became licensed as a ship’s captain and was seen for many years piloting the beautiful schooner “Freedom” around New York harbor. He was immensely proud of having once guided an enormous ship through the Suez Canal at the helm, and for having sailed from the coast of Africa to New York City as crewmember on a 60 ft. schooner, navigating by starlight, to join in the Tall Ship’s Parade in 1992 celebrating the 500th Anniversary of Columbus’ voyage to the Americas. He was in many ways happiest at sea.

While writing his dissertation at the Institute of Fine Arts, he became the protégé of famed art historian Sir John Pope-Hennessy, visiting him in Florence. Mark was a great connoisseur of Renaissance bronzes with particular passion for the little known field of Renaissance medals and plaquettes. In the mid-1980s he worked for several years at the pioneering White Columns Gallery as an assistant curator. In 1992 he was a contributing author in the seminal “ The Currency of Fame : Portrait Medals of the Renaissance” exhibition at The Frick Collection and The National Gallery of Art. Soon after he became a private sculpture dealer based in New York. He worked as a private art advisor for John R. Gaines, J.Tomilson Hill and Charles C. Dent. During the pre-internet days Mark could not resist passing by an antique shop without going in. Among his most important discoveries were the bronze figure of Mars Gradivus by Willem Van Tetrode [now at The Hill Collection] found in a small antique shop in Brazil as well as the oil lamp in the form of a winged monster [now in the late Robert H. Smith collection promised to The National Gallery of Art]. He made numerous contributions to the Matthew Brudniak Collection in Washington DC. Dealers, collectors and academics would inevitably stop by his private, künstkammer-like Upper East Side apartment gallery hoping to find an ancient porphyry fragment, medieval stained glass, palissy ware or a gothic ivory carving.
An immaculate and dapper dresser, Mark was a familiar figure in the NYC art gallery and club scene in the 1980s.

Mark was married in the late 1990s to art historian Julie Pairault at a lovely wedding in the French countryside; the two separated and divorced in the early 2000s and Julie returned to France to raise their two daughters. Mark was raised in the Baha’i Faith as a child and remained active in the Faith through the late 1980s in the New York City community.

Tragically, Mark suffered in declining health for a number of years from chronic alcoholism, and eventually passed away from the effects of the disease at age 58. In addition to his daughters Claire and Marguerite in France, he’s survived by his sister Shari Bartok, his brothers Jayce Bartok and Dennis Bartok, and his nephews Sandor Bartok and Jaxon Bartok. His family also extends their deep thanks to his dear friend and former companion Barbara Giffuni who supported Mark in his later years.

"O My Lord, the poor one hath verily hastened unto the KIngdom of Thy wealth, the stranger unto his home within Thy precincts, he that is sore athirst to the heavenly river of Thy bounty." – Baha’u’llah

(Many thanks to Mark’s friend Matthew Brudniak for providing portions of this memorial.)

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