by Len Lear
William Teodecki, a Germantown artist in the Greene Street Artist Cooperative who is represented by Borrelli’s Chestnut Hill Gallery, may be 92 years old and have a painful hip, but nothing can keep him from painting or creating collages every day – something he says he has been doing for 89 years.
“I do certain exercises,” Teodecki said, “and a painful hip and old injury keep me from enjoying life fully, but I still paint all the time, which keeps me going. I especially love doing collages.”
Teodecki, who said he reads the Local every Wednesday, noted a recent New York Times article he’d just read about an 87-year-old Japanese scientist in Canada.
“He calls this time of life ‘The death zone’ because it’s when you realize you will be dead soon,” he said. “I’m in that zone now, when you look back and try to figure out what you have done with your life.”
A native of Detroit, Teodecki was about to be drafted into the Army in 1950 but was rejected because he had bad feet. He was, however, awarded a full scholarship to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which brought him to Philadelphia.
He’s done countless portraits and landscapes in his many years of painting, which he describes as “strictly in the genre of American Realism with no attempt to do any expressionistic or impressionistic.”
But his career didn’t start that way. It started with illustrations.
He had always enjoyed drawing motorcycles and automobiles, so after graduation, he moved back to Detroit to start an art studio, Graphic House. He and five partners ran that business from the mid-’50s to the mid-’60s, Teodecki said, and the group was “fortunate enough” to be contracted by car companies to do advertising and promotional illustrations.
He painted many illustrations of hot rods, stock cars and motorcycles for the print and poster market during those years. One of his favorites, he said, was for the Ford Thunderbird catalog.
“I even shook hands with Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca,” said Teodecki, referring to the automobile executive best known for the development of the Ford Mustang and Pinto.
In 1967, Teodecki moved to Connecticut and bought a horse farm, where he illustrated books for New York publishers until 1977. He also illustrated cookbooks for a French chef and even worked in that chef’s kitchen, where he became “somewhat of a chef myself.”
“I almost got into a TV cooking series,” he said. “I had a drinking problem that got in the way, though. And that caused a split up with my wife.”
Then, 35 years ago, Teodecki moved to the little village of Oxford, the town closest to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania’s southern Chester County. He lived there for 15 years until he saw an advertisement in the Local for a Germantown art studio that was for sale, and bought it.
He is still there now, part of the Greene Street Artist Cooperative, an organization dedicated to artists. He never developed a liking for computers, he said, and still collects a lot of newspapers and magazines, though “bending over to pick them up is difficult.” He still does his own grocery shopping and gets Meals on Wheels every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
“I read a lot, and paint a lot,” he said. “This co-op is a wonderful place, and I can get help if I need it. There is a lockable backyard park, a vegetable garden and lovely, helpful people.”
And finally, at the age of 80, Teodecki said, “My second wife got me to quit drinking. Alcoholism had been a problem for years.”
Teodecki’s daughter, Yvonne Hamer, had this to say about her father, who for 17 years worked in the art department for Franklin Mint before retiring at age 90: “My memories are mostly all good. Dad was his own boss, and I thought that was cool.”
Hamer said she is still very close to her father.
“My parents were/are on the ‘hip’ side of life, so it had a huge effect on my course in life. We had family dinner together every night by candlelight,” she said. “My father and I are alike, both Sagittarius. I’m more proud of him than words can express.”
Teodecki was married for 20 years to his first wife, Gloria, with whom he had two daughters. He was married to his second wife, Susan, with whom he had a son and daughter, for 10 years.
“I’m quite proud of all of my children,” Teodecki said. “They are wonderful. Bill, who has an electrical engineering degree, is close to being a genius. My daughters are very artistic, and one, Amy, is a regular Madame Curie. She works for Pfizer on vaccinations. I don’t have any worries about any of them.”
Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.
